Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
06ISLAMABAD16956
2006-08-28 13:20:00
CONFIDENTIAL
Embassy Islamabad
Cable title:  

HUDOOD AMENDMENTS MOVED TO COMMITTEE AS ASSEMBLY

Tags:  PK PGOV KWMN KDEM PHUM 
pdf how-to read a cable
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RUEHDBU/AMEMBASSY DUSHANBE PRIORITY
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RUEHPW/AMCONSUL PESHAWAR PRIORITY 7919
C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ISLAMABAD 016956 

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/27/2016
TAGS: PK PGOV KWMN KDEM PHUM
SUBJECT: HUDOOD AMENDMENTS MOVED TO COMMITTEE AS ASSEMBLY
CONSIDERS NO CONFIDENCE MOTION

REF: A. ISLAMABAD 15630

B. ISLAMABAD 14095

C. ISLAMABAD 6800

D. GRENCIK-SACKS EMAIL 08/24/2006

E. LAHORE - SEPTEL

Classified By: CDA Peter W. Bodde, Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ISLAMABAD 016956

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/27/2016
TAGS: PK PGOV KWMN KDEM PHUM
SUBJECT: HUDOOD AMENDMENTS MOVED TO COMMITTEE AS ASSEMBLY
CONSIDERS NO CONFIDENCE MOTION

REF: A. ISLAMABAD 15630

B. ISLAMABAD 14095

C. ISLAMABAD 6800

D. GRENCIK-SACKS EMAIL 08/24/2006

E. LAHORE - SEPTEL

Classified By: CDA Peter W. Bodde, Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d)


1. (C) Summary and Introduction: After a initial failure to
convene a quorum on August 18, the Pakistan Muslim League-led
(PML) government of Prime Minster Shaukat Aziz introduced a
bill during the August 21 National Assembly session proposing
amendments to the Hudood Ordinance, the draconian 1979
presidential order promulgated by General Zia-ul-Haq
delineating the elements and punishment for offenses such as
rape, adultery and perjury. Entitled the "Criminal Law
Amendment (Protection of Women) Act, 2006", the bill is a
revised version of the government's initial draft, but one
that retains critical provisions that, inter alia,
distinguish rape from adultery, establish the concept of
statutory rape and remove the restriction requiring the
testimony of "four male Muslim witnesses" to sustain a rape
charge. (Note: Post has forward the full texts of both
government's original draft and the bill as introduced to
SCA/PB. End note.)


2. (C) Thanks to procedural connivance between the PML and
opposition Pakistan People's Party (PPP),the Hudood bill was
swiftly moved off the floor to a special multi-party
committee, freeing the way for Parliamentary debate on the
opposition's no confidence motion against Prime Minister
Shaukat Aziz (Ref C). Although some women's/human rights
activists decry the proposed amendments as falling far short
of the mark, post believes that passage of the bill as it now
stands would mark a significant step forward for Pakistani
women, as well as for President Musharraf's vision of
Enlightened Moderation. End summary and
introduction.

Pressure to Backslide
--------------

3. (C) Little more than two weeks ago, Attorney General
Makhdoom Amin Khan (the bill's principal drafter) shared with
poloffs serious reservations regarding the amendment's
prospects (Ref A),noting that several Cabinet member and PML

party leaders were advocating amendments that would severely
weaken the carefully crafted bill. Throughout the second week
of August, local media carried stories detailing calls from
both government politicians and opposition Islamist parties
to walk back the amendments. By mid-August, the headlines
had shifted to President Musharraf's personal intervention,
first with Cabinet members and then with PML parliamentary
managers, admonishing them to move the bill forward smartly
with minimal compromise.

Parliamentary Theater
--------------


4. (C) Political drama of the highest order followed the
government's introduction of the amendments on August 21. As
expected, members from the opposition Islamist Muttahida
Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) virulently attacked the bill as
"un-Islamic," literally tearing their copies of the bill into
small pieces they flung to the floor. As the debate raged,
Information Minister Durrani declared to the Assembly (and
television cameras) that by shredding copies of the bill --
papers which contained language with direct quotes from holy
texts -- the MMA members had "desecrated" the Quran. As
shamed MMA (and grandstanding PML) members scrambled to
retrieve the defiled scraps of paper from the Assembly floor,
the PPP moved to establish a special committee to review the
bill. Embarrassed by the unforeseen fallout from the
bill-shredding incident, even the MMA did not object to
moving the bill from the floor to the committee.


5. (C) In a conversation immediately following the August
21 session, Chairman of the National Reconstruction
Bureau(PML) Daniyal Aziz told poloffs that the tactic of
moving the bill to a special Assembly committee required

ISLAMABAD 00016956 002 OF 003


close cooperation between government and PPP parliamentary
leaders. According to Aziz, the committee's mandate is
severely limited, restricted to the sole question of whether
any of the bill's provisions contravene the Quran. Moving
the bill to the committee not only prevented extended debate
on the floor by MMA opponents, but also pens in the MMA from
proposing broad revisions the bill's language. Confident
that the bill has been drafted in strict conformance with the
Quran, Aziz predicted that the MMA efforts to attack the text
would quickly run out of steam. (Note: Other contacts have
told post that the committee's mandate is not restricted, but
that there is little chance that the bill will emerge from
the committee with any significant revisions. End note.)


6. (C) Although publicly characterizing the government's
proposed Hudood bill as "too little, too late" and decrying
the government's timing as a deliberate attempt to split the
opposition in advance of a no confidence motion, PPP leaders
such as Information Secretary Sherry Rehman and Aitzaz Ahsen
are working with the PML to advance a full-strength bill.
Establishing a special committee nicely served PPP purposes,
as moving the Hudood amendments off the floor allowed
opposition parties to proceed with their long-discussed plan
to present a no confidence motion against the government on
August 23. As the no confidence motion proceeds toward an
expected August 29 vote, the special committee has
concurrently begun its work, although not without attendant
theatrics: the PPP boycotted the committee's initial meeting
in protest over the government's initiative to consult the
MMA on the bill outside the Assembly and demanded that
Religious Affairs Minister Ejaz-ul-Haq (son of Hudood
progenitor General Zia-ul-Haq) be replaced as committee
chairperson. (Note: The Assembly speaker granted the latter
demand, appointing PML party whip as the committee chair.
End note.)

Key Amendments
--------------

7. (U) A "Statement of Objects and Reasons" appended to
the bill concisely presents the case for dramatic amendment
to the Hudood Ordinance, stating directly that "the object of
this bill is to bring the laws relating to zina (sex outside
of marriage) and qazf (perjury),in particular, in conformity
with the stated objectives of the Islamic Republic of
Pakistan and...in particular to provide relief and protection
to women against misuse and abuse of law." The bill
distinguishes between offenses and punishments mentioned in
the Quran and Sunnah (which are sacrosanct and cannot be
revised),such as zina and qazf, but addresses all offenses
not defined in these holy texts as "ta'zir" offenses that are
the subject of state legislation). Many of the offenses,
procedures and penalties in the current Hudood Ordinance, the
Statement observes, are merely ta'zir and therefore amenable
to revision as the State determines. The bill moves numerous
"ta'zir" provisions in the current Hudood Ordinance to the
Pakistan Penal
Code.


8. (U) The current Hudood Ordinance has led to the
conflation of zina (sex outside of marriage) with
zina-bil-jabr (rape),subjecting both to the same kinds of
proof and punishment: women who have been raped, but could
not produce four adult male Muslim witness to corroborate the
complaint would be automatically charged with, found guilty
of and punished for zina. The government's amendment severs
this connection, moving the crime of rape to the criminal
code, allowing the introduction of forensic evidence and
protecting a raped woman from having her complaint used
against her as an admission of non-marital sexual
intercourse. The amendments introduce the concept of
statutory rape, denying defendant's the right to claim
consent as a defense if the woman is under 16 years of age.
Noting that the courts are often reluctant to find a
defendant guilty in cases of gang rape because the current
Hudood ordinance requires a penalty of death, the amendment
adds the life imprisonment as a sentencing option.


9. (C) Under the current Hudood Ordinance, women whose
marriage or divorce has not been properly registered have

ISLAMABAD 00016956 003 OF 003


been prevented from using these unions as a defense to a zina
charges. As many marriages and divorces in Pakistan are not
registered, the amendment removes the requirement that a
woman charged with adultery must prove that she had a "valid"
marriage or divorce. The amendments would codify in law
earlier procedural orders that shift authority to bring a
charge of adultery from the police (widely believed to act
complicity with vengeful husbands) to the courts. The
amendment shifts the risk of a zina charge from the woman to
the accuser: a complainant alleging zina must present four
adult eyewitnesses to corroborate the accusation. If the
court finds the charge to be unsubstantiated, the accuser is
by definition considered guilty of bearing false witness, the
punishment for which is eighty lashes. In the view of the
bill's drafter, Attorney General Khan, this shift in the
evidentiary and legal burden in zina cases precludes abusive
husbands from persecuting their wives with legal vendettas.

Comment
--------------

10. (C) So far, public reaction to the government's bill is
playing according to script. With unremarkable
predictability, the MMA and its Islamist supporters have
initiated a loud campaign labeling the proposed Hudood
Ordinance mendments as un-Islamic -- an accusation they hope
will rouse their followers to a mass demonstration of
resistance, but which has thus far fallen short. On the
other side of the spectrum, some women's and human rights
activists maintain a maximalist position, excoriating
President Musharraf for waiting seven years to put forward
the amendments and declaring that nothing less than full
repeal of Zia's Hudood Ordinance will be acceptable.


11. (C) After the downbeat assessment of the Attorney
General on August 3 and subsequent rumors of revisions to
appease Musharraf's more conservative allies (Ref B),poloffs
were relieved to find that the bill as introduced to the
Assembly retained the most significant amendments proposed in
the government's original draft. If adopted in its present
form, the resulting statutory framework would significantly
enhance the legal protections available to Pakistani women.
POL's contacts in European embassies agree that the proposed
amendments represent a dramatic step forward.


12. (C) National Security Advisor Tariq Aziz, tasked by
President Musharraf to coordinate the political strategy for
the amendments (Ref A),told Charge d'Affaires on August 26
that he expects the special committee to report the bill back
to the Assembly in early September, following the vote on the
no confidence motion. Aziz and PML parliamentary leaders
intend to see the bill successfully through an Assembly vote
before Musharraf's September 9th departure to attended the
NAM Summit and UNGA, believing that passage by one house will
sufficiently insulate the President from criticism by women's
rights activists during his visit to the U.S.
BODDE