The woman who dared to cry rape

It was a scorching afternoon in Islamabad last week, when a trembling Mukhtar Mai, teacher and rape victim, announced to assembled journalists that a long-planned trip to America was off because her mother was sick.

No one believed her. Ms Mai was to publicise in the United States the work of the crisis centres she has developed since being gang-raped on the orders of a village court in Meerwala, in the Punjab. Now, because her mother was ill, she would be unable to undertake a trip that would have been highly embarrassing to the Government of Pervez Musharraf.

For the activists who have passionately championed Ms Mai's cause for three years, the "show-conference" was the final insult in a case which has appalled urban Pakistanis, enraged human rights activists and thrown an unflattering spotlight on the way Pakistan treats women.

During the first seven months of last year, according to the Independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, at least 151 Pakistani women were gang-raped and 176 were murdered in honour killings. The traumatic case of 30-year-old Mukhtar Mai, has come to stand for all such brutal violations of female dignity in remote tribal regions.

On a June day three years ago, 14 men from the dominant Mastoi tribe in Meerwala volunteered to rape Ms Mai to settle a score after her 12-year-old brother Abdul Shakoor was seen walking with a Mastoi girl. The decision on retribution had been taken by a village court to preserve tribal honour. The jirga, or council of village elders, summoned Ms Mai to apologise for her brother's sexual misdeed. When she apologised, they gang-raped her anyway. Ms Mai was then paraded naked before hundreds of onlookers.

But Ms Mai, an unmarried daughter from a low-caste family, fought back in the courts. Half a dozen men involved in her rape were punished, with two sentenced to death. But then, events began to take a sinister and depressing turn. Last week, a court in Lahore refused to extend a 90-day detention order and 12 of the 14 accused were ordered to be released. The case has gone into appeal, and is now expected to go to the Supreme Court.

All the men must do is post a 600 bail (NZ$1500) each and they can leave jail. According to The News, an Islamabad daily: "The police failed to provide the prosecution with the damning evidence" even though some 150 onlookers could have testified. In the village, the men's homes are right across from Ms Mai's. Every day she must face the men who raped her and who threaten to do it again. But there was also trauma in Islamabad, where the prospect of her imminent visit to the United States was being viewed with trepidation. By last year, Mukhtar Mai had become an international icon for abused women. Time magazine named her as one of Asia's heroes.

Ms Mai had used her compensation money in the case to start two schools in her village. American sympathisers donated more than 73,000 (NZ$186,000), which Ms Mai used to set up a shelter for abused women and buy a van which is now used as an ambulance in the area. On the back of such a triumphant and defiant rehabilitation, she had decided to go to the US to publicise her schools and voluntary efforts. In Islamabad, the thought of Ms Mai receiving applause across America prompted immediate action. The American visit was scheduled to begin last Saturday. On Thursday, the authorities placed Ms Mai under house arrest. She has reportedly said that when she attempted to leave her home, police pointed their guns at her. Police severed her telephone line. Ms Mai's name is on a blacklist, normally reserved to curtail the movement of political extremists, called the Exit Control List.

Using her mobile phone, Ms Mai continued to argue her case. To no avail. Airports were alerted that Ms Mai should not be permitted to leave the country. There was an international outcry. The request to keep Ms Mai in the country allegedly came from the Pakistani ambassador in Washington, Jahangir Karamat.

A weeping Ms Mai told a founder of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Asma Jahangir, that she was rushed last Monday night to the capital and made to sign papers requesting the return of her passport from the American embassy visa office. Her signed statement maintains she had not been under detention in her home village, but guarded for her own protection.

Then Ms Mai called last week's press conference in Islamabad to announce her speaking engagements in America were cancelled.

"I came to Islamabad to discuss my crisis centre back in the village," she said. "I decided of my own free will not to go abroad, because my mother is ill." Minutes later, Farzana Bari, a women's rights activist, rang her mother in the village and said she sounded perfectly fine. "But Mukhtar looks completely terrorised," she added. "The Government was afraid she would tarnish its image." Insiders say Ms Mai is frightened that government agencies will "whisk her away" if she dares speak out again. The case has indeed embarrassed President Musharraf, a "modern" general who is keen to play down the religious extremism in backward parts of his country. He has been promoting "an enlightened Islam" but activists say that this vision seems to exclude women.

Privately, General Musharraf is enraged at how Ms Mai's case has brought infamy to Pakistan. The President even threatened to "slap" a reporter "in the face" for publishing details in an international magazine about Ms Mai's defiance. Officials are desperate to hush up the brutal justice of the tribal hinterlands in Punjab.

When Time magazine nominated Ms Mai as one of Asia's heroes, it commented: "As long as the state refuses to fully challenge the brutality of tribal law, the plight of Pakistani women will continue. Mukhtar Mai is a symbol of their victimhood, but in her resilience she is also a symbol of their strength."

- INDEPENDENT