Cover-Up of a Gang Rape by the Military?

#61 by yahyajamil on February 15, 2005 7:11am PT


If you are implying that the person who committed rape thought he would never be caught, then why use condoms?


Simple...it was a gang-rape..they didn`t want the second guy to get an infection from the first guy..



From my experience of over a quarter of a century in uniform let me tell you that no military person will commit a rape thinking that he will get away because the Army will protect him


They did it in Bangladesh...so it`s par for the course...

It is naive to think a woman will get justice in an immoral system.....espceially when the culprit is protected and part of the system.

Don`t expect western pressure will be applied anytime soon. The `izzat` of one woman is miniscule in the realm of big games these powers play.

hamidm

yaar baRay hi bay-ghairat ho tum log.

echoboom hasn`t been popping his veins in his temples for nothing.

Re: # 55
Thank you, Tahmed Sahib.
Bohat Khoob. Hum jo na keh sake, woh Aap ney Keh diya.

The concept of Ghairat is a noble concept, but like everything else it has been perverted out of recognition in Pakistan. The Men of Pakistan think their ghairat is damaged if they see their sister talking to a stranger, or find out that she is having a romantic relationship out of wedlock, but they do nothing to change the draconian laws of Hudood Ordinance. Thus, they have totally perverted the meaning of Ghairat to suit their own selves. That is not to say that Ghairatmundi is a moot concept.

One example of the perverted mindset of the Pakistani individual:
A Rapist loots the Izzat or Respect of a Woman.
In actuality the Rapist loses his own honor, but in our society it is the poor woman who bears the brunt of being raped as if it is her fault that she got raped.
We, Pakistani are truly perverted as a whole.

We have, as a society ventured far from the noble concept of Ghairat, and have perverted to suit our perverted sense of Male Chauvanism, just as we have failed our mothers, sisters, wives and daughters.

We call ourselves the Ummah of the Prophet, yet we cant even provide justice to those most in need. The spirit of Islam has left us, and we are left with the rotten corpse of Islam. Forgeting the true spirit of concepts like Hayaa, Izzat-e-Nafs, Ghairat , Pakistanis hold on to their rotten disfigured effiges.

hamidm2, good afternoon. You have put your finger on it (or hit the nail or bulls eye) with you first para of #60. Really there is nothing more that can be said (or needs to be said)after that.

But...(there is always a but or an if......) is to dowith this concept of ``Civil Society governed by laws and legislatures``. That is where the argument will be. That is where the spin is. You and me and others will be at one end of the argument and the others well....Thrown in the phrase/keywords ``western educated`` ``yahoodi`` ``decadent`` and a few other words we are back to square one.

There appears to be a lack of an agreed definition of what is meant by ``Civil Society governed by laws and legislatures``.

Re: # 44
(The only reason the rapist left behind the condom was the very reason he committed the rape in the first place...that he would never be caught.)

If you are implying that the person who committed rape thought he would never be caught, then why use condoms? Your argument is going round in circles. Please try and understand that I am not defending anyone. A rape is perhaps worse than murder - in many ways. The victim lives to die every day. From my experience of over a quarter of a century in uniform let me tell you that no military person will commit a rape thinking that he will get away because the Army will protect him. He may assume that he may not be caught, but one thing is for sure if it is established that a military person has committed an offence, there is no maafi. Secondly this rape is an individual act. Like so many other members on this forum, I am against the role of Army in politics and the institutional damage it has caused, the exploitation of religion by its longest serving Chief etc etc, but would not believe that the organisation would defend a rapist. What is not correct is the silence by the Army authorities on the on going investigation into the incident that is leading to conjectures.

hp............

.......i agree with you .... ghairat, izzat, khudi, izza-i-nafs, khud-dari and other such nonsense are empty slogans offered by folks who do not understand the concept of civil society governed by laws and legislatures ............. these are the same people who try to sell an abomination like pashtunwali as a valid legal and judicial system complete with honor killings, ritual stonings and kangaroo courts ..............

......... people in pakistan, specially the chattering middle class, talk a lot about ghairat and izzat - it is nonsense ! ........ghairat and izzat are nothing but a manifestation of the feudal mind set that pervades the society at all levels ......................

rahul_c I am just making a suggestion as why the whole issue of respectability and victimhood of the rape wictim is played out. Essentially it is to do with the way the whole concept of Rape and Justice given to the victim has evolved over a period of time. If one can get a handle on that you can get to grips with it. respectability as a concept whic is PREVALENT more in the POOR SOCIETIES than in the educated ones. In educated societies respectabiity is a function of your demeanour, education and civilisationability. Remember in poor uneducated societies, might is always right - so the down trodden have only one thing left - that is the abstract concept of RESPECTABILITY.

rahul_capri that link was removed by the powers that be on chowk. Either in their excitement of removing/deleting other posts the accidentlly deleted mine or there was something wrong with them. I will put the http address here later on....

BTW I am suggesting that the way the victimhood is shown should be moved - from one of demanding justice through self-pity (and the respectability issue) to one of making it a crime period (once it is proved that rape has happened). If you remove the issue of mitigating circumstances, the defence used by the rapist, you will automatically get rid of the slf-pity aspect of the raped. Then rape would be put on a more equal footing to other crimes.

SOS, I am not saying that concept of victimhood is to be removed. Look at my example pf road accident. The driver would have been punished, and the victim would have gone along leading his her normal life .
QC&P Such trains of thought have led me to believe that taboo on sex is nothing but the most powerful tool of misogyny by the patriarchal powers that be.On another note(though on the same subject), that paper on Roxana was great , but I did not find the other link you were refererring to though, in a post yerterday.
tahmed, Will we still be talking about ghairat and oppression of women if a truck driver had bumped a woman and the army was hiding it? This is what, I think , HPs point is.
I would have liked to reply in greater detail, maybe later.

Jahil,
like the people who raped others were punished.....read the whole interact before hiting the reply key.

In general in Pakistan the Life of a WOMAN is cheap. Women have been raped before, or killed to save honour of family. None of the perpetrators of these crimes have been brought to justice. Atleast in the west which you say has the problems you mentioned, people get justice. The west is a safe haven compared to the cess-pits some of our homelands have become.

Your statement reminds me ofthe sayingthe devil and the deep blue sea! That is where women are often there. (I would suggest you look up the origins of this saying!)

HP #49 Clearly you were referring to a very different concept of ``ghairat`` than shoresahib and others.

Thus, the concept of ghairat you referred to (and opposed) is, e.g., forbidding an unmarried man and and woman from falling in love for any reason. No one here will disagree that (while this is practiced in the more backward areas of Pakistan) this is NOT ghairat - this is simply the oppression of the weak by the strong and the suppression of the rights of consulting adults to fall in love.

The concept of ghairat shoresahib and others is, e.g. the punishment through due process of law of a man who has raped a woman. It is indeed beghairatee for all of us Pakistanis that such oppression of women is permitted. It is beghairatee that not one man was brought to justice for attacking sikhs and hindus in 1947. It is beghairatee that there was no public outcry in the newspapers (the fact that muslims were also killed by hindus and sikhs does not absolve us).

As Socrates said, first define your terms.

Re: # 34

first of all the reasons you mentioned for criticizing this event are not quite right. I guess the actual reasons are:

1. A woman was raped.
2. She was raped by an Army officer.
3. The army is trying to cover-up the matter.
4. The victim was forcefully sent away from the jurisdiction of the crime so that an FIR could not be launched.
5. The Army and Agencies are trying to pressurize the victim and her family.
6. To try to get justice for the victim and to put the rapists behind bars.

further you said:

``All of the above are pretty abhorent crimes, and anyone indulging them should be hung drawn and quartered . And when these guys are hung, drawn and quartered, youwill have good precedents, and hopefully there will be law and order.``

I am surprised by your statement and such other statements that the rapist should be hung!! as on one hand you guys like a punishment as severe as death for him and on the other hand when it comes to Islamic penalization all of you shout against it being severe, absurd and out dated.

Then you say:

``Till then I am afraid we all have to reach the safe havens of the west (the kafir lands) for some form of self-respect.``

Which safe havens are you talking about? The ones in U.S.A. where rape and child molestering is at its peak? where the murder/ crime rate is the highest in the world?

Europe? where racism and discrimination runs in the blood of people. Where Muslim girls are not allowed to cover their heads in school? and where there is no self respect for the bloody asians or Muslims?

I obviously do not support the rapist and totally agree with you all but I feel that our spectrum of thought needs to be a bit widened and we should not have discrepancies in our statements whatever the scenario may be.

Rahul_C and HP
there is a problem here. Victimhood is perfectly alright. If we remove all sense of victimhood (god this is a pathetic word but will stick with it it), then the sense of wrong doing in the crime vanishes.

Perhaps what you are asking for a a different sense of this victimhood - move of from of helplesness to one of anger. If so, the immediate question is how are going to go about doing it? What are the steps you are going to take to get to that point?

#37, #47 and others (Rahul_capri, HP, QCP et al).....
interesting questions being raised. There is a small problem here.....there are two parties to the rape scenario ( trying to be gender neutral here)

(a) the person who raped
(b) the person who has been raped.


All you seem to be alluding to the so called double whammy against women. To quote `` Every culture, not just eastern and third world, but western and developed countries too, somehow treat rape as something which is demeaning to the victim herself.`` (ghairiat issue etc)

There are two aspects here: one is the actual act of the crime itself. the second is the defence of the rapist and the response of the raped. The rapist`s first line of defence is always that the person who got raped was asking for it, we are all familiar with this line of argument and I will not go into it. There are a number of levels to this argument. The second line of defence is that the rapist lost his/her (often it is a him) mind and in a moment of insanity he committed this act. the third line of defence is that he is totally deranged.

With each on of these lines of defence there is (or was) a likelyhood that the rapist would go scotfree. Also note till recently rape was not a crime. The only way arond this was to make the raped be a victim (and a a crime ). Unfortunately this has been turned into victimhood and you have to make the society feel sorry for you so that the damned rapist can get the few years in jail (that often he comes back to haunt the living daylights out of you later on is another matter).

Even after it (rape) has been made a crime( a penal offence), because of the lines of defence the rapists use, the raped has to always invariably fall back on to being a victim. Note all this after proving that the raped was raped - so the poor raped has to keep all Genetic Material on (or in ) THEMSELVES so that it can be proved beyond doubt sexual intercourse had taken place. (these days ofcourse this has been considerably weakened and rape has a much broader meaning in the civilised world and hence it is possible to get some form of redress for sexual harrassment/teasing/flirting etc if youdont like it)). Them comes the various lines of defence.

We are dealing with the mind. And how all of this plays in the mind of the victim is important. In educated societies, these issues are dealt with more soberly. In undereducated societies this invariably becomes emotive issue. Remember respectablity is a very emotional issue and an emotional response.