Afghanistan is to review legislation that the UN said would legalize rape within marriage after a dramatic reversal from Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who signed the rules into law last month.
Karzai has bowed to intense international pressure to scrap the law, described by the UN human rights chief in Afghanistan as “reminiscent of the decrees made by the Taliban regime.”
It is said to forbid women to refuse to have sex with their husbands and force them to get spousal permission before leaving the house, looking for a job, going to the doctor or receiving education.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has led the international condemnation of the law, on Sunday saying it would be unacceptable for British soldiers to die defending a regime that enacted oppressive legislation. Brown told Sky News that NATO leaders had attacked the law in the communique issued at the end of their summit in Strasbourg, France, and that Karzai had told him it would not come into force in the way it had been reported.
“I phoned the president immediately about this because anybody who looks at Afghanistan will be worried if we are going to see laws brought in that discriminate against women and put women at risk,” Brown said. “I made it absolutely clear that we could not tolerate that situation. You cannot have British troops fighting, and in some cases dying, to save a democracy where that democracy is infringing human rights. [Karzai] responded by saying this law would not be enacted in the way it has been presented.”
The Afghan president was accused of backing the law to win hardliners’ support ahead of the presidential election. But a Western diplomat said Karzai had been damaged by international criticism of the law, which only applied to the Shiite minority, and was “looking for a face-saving way to drop it.”
Fears have also been raised on the safety of the female parliamentarians who have spoken out. Foreign ambassadors on Sunday met in Kabul to consider a request to pay for bodyguards to protect them.
On Saturday, Karzai rejected international criticism of the law, saying it had been “misinterpreted.” But he promised to send it to the ministry of justice for review and amendment if it was found to conflict with the equal rights provisions in Afghanistan’s Constitution. The final version of the law has not been published, although it was enacted in the middle of last month.
An analysis by the Canadian embassy in Kabul of the version sent by parliament to the president said the law contained a number of articles removing the rights of women. Custody of children is automatically granted to fathers and grandfathers and provision is made for minors to marry, although a later amendment set the age of marriage to the same as Afghan civil law.
The most controversial article says that the wife is “bound to preen for her husband, as and when he desires” and “is bound to give a positive response to the sexual desire of her husband.”
Defenders of the law have pointed out that the legislation was improved by the lower house of parliament, which introduced the concession allowing women to leave their homes without their husbands’ permission if they had a good reason.
Afghan Deputy Minister of Justice Muhammad Qasim Hashimzai said a review had been set up that would include the UN and representatives from diplomatic missions in Kabul.
“We still have time to review it because the law is not yet finalized until it is printed in the official gazette. Once we get everyone around a table, we can see what needs to be done,” he said.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to