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Woman rescued
after resisting prostitution push
Abu Dhabi |By Aftab Kazmi | 09-01-2001
A woman who was lured to the UAE with the promise of
a housemaid's job but instead was tortured after an
attempt to force her into prostitution has been rescued
by Abu Dhabi Police after escaping from her captor.
 The
police have arrested Zahid Shah, the man who allegedly
brought her to the UAE. The police yesterday handed
the woman and her three-year-old son over to the Ansar
Burney Welfare Trust International (ABWTI) for repatriation.
The woman and her son, whose names are being withheld,
were brought to Abu Dhabi on December 24 from Lahore
on a visit visa sponsored by a building maintenance
company.Since it was the holy month of Ramadan, she
received good treatment, she said.
But as the month came to an end her situation changed
drastically. "He (Shah) asked me to entertain some
people on Eid day. it was a big shock to me and I refused,"
she said. "He got angry and started torturing me.
He even burnt different parts of my body with cigarettes
to force me into prostitution."
Later, he locked her in a room when she threatened
to commit suicide by jumping out a window. After a few
days she managed to escape. "I did not know where
to go with my little son who is suffering from a serious
heart ailment," she said. With the help of a taxi
driver, she reached a police station.
She said at first she was glad to come to Abu Dhabi
because she is very poor and burdened by a huge debt.
She has two daughters and had borrowed money to support
them in Lahore. "I am illiterate and cannot do
any work other than cleaning. But my earnings were not
enough to support my family and meet the medical expenses
for my son's treatment," she said.Shah was an old
acquaintance and regarded her as a "sister."
"He has been working in the UAE for 26 years and
convinced me to come to Abu Dhabi to get a housemaid
job. He knew my difficulties and pretended to help me
overcome them in a very sympathetic way." Shah
allegedly arranged the visa for her and her son. "I
brought him with me since he was very sick and I hoped
to get him good treatment abroad."
Now hoping to return home as early as possible, she
said she had to bring up two daughters and could not
resort to immoral or illegal activity. "I am a
role model for my daughters - how could I become a prostitute?"
She said that she did not want people to look upon her
children as the daughters of an immoral woman.
She was married twice. Her first husband, the father
of her daughters, divorced her, and the second, the
father of her son, abandoned her after marrying another
woman. Ansar Burney, chairman of the ABWTI, who is visiting
the UAE, yesterday told Gulf News that his trust will
do its best to help the woman return to Lahore.
"We are also arranging financial help to free
her from her debt," he said. Burney is also making
arrangements, with the help of some UAE nationals, for
the boy's treatment. "I really appreciate the Rulers
and people of the UAE who are very considerate philanthropists,"
he added. Burney said that Abu Dhabi police took extra
care to protect the woman and her son after hearing
her problems. "I hope she will be sent back to
Lahore in the next three to four days," he added.
Women
sold 'like animals'
Pakistan sees mass abductions of girls, forced
into prostitution, drug-running
by Ahmar Mustikhan
KARACHI, Pakistan -- Sale of women is taking place
on a mass scale in Pakistan, and at least one journalist
who bared the faces of those involved in the heinous
crime has been murdered, human rights organizations
have told WorldNetDaily.
The organizations also say that police have implicated
innocent persons in the journalist's murder case to
protect the real culprits.
Human traffickers bring destitute Bangladeshi and Burmese
women into Pakistan on the promise of getting them decent
jobs, but once here they are sold to third parties,
mostly for the purpose of prostitution. These women
are escorted all the way through India, some distances
on foot, to reach Pakistan.
One such thriving market is in the remote town of Thar,
bordering Indian Rajashtan, where at least one former
minister and two members of the disbanded parliament
maintain huge stakes in the women-selling business,
according to the human rights non-governmental organization
Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International.
Shaheen Burney, vice chairperson of Welfare Trust International,
deplored that the selling was taking place with impunity,
despite the fact that the trust had informed Pakistan's
high officials, including Chief Executive General Pervez
Musharraf, about the crimes.
Shaheen said that in the district of Thar, women were
being sold in a market much in the way that animals
are sold in a livestock market "where buyers literally
scan and examine the women before paying their prices
... humiliating, molesting and sexually harassing these
unfortunate women in the open market."
She said the women include those abducted from the
province of Punjab. According to Shaheen, once their
sexual utility was over for one buyer, these victim
women were resold to subsequent buyers.
"These women are compelled to live a miserable
and humiliating life afterwards, along with their illegitimate
children, as those who bought them usually resell them
when they are no longer required," says Shaheen.
Shaheen demanded a thorough, high-level inquiry into
the murder of senior journalist Sufi Muhammad Khan in
Thar's neighboring Badin district, as she believes his
murder was linked to his expose of prominent citizens'
involvement in the racket. She warned that if immediate
action was not taken by the government to stop the gory
business, her trust would raise the issue in international
forums.
Lawyers for Human Rights and Legal Aid chief Zia Awan
said the sale of women was not restricted to Thar alone.
"Visit any Bengali or Burmese slum in Karachi
and you can buy women there," he said. Nearly half
of Karachi's 12 million people live in slum areas, and
according to government statistics, 2.5 million of them
are illegal aliens.
Awan said thousands of women are being sold in the
underworld for the purpose of either being a prostitute
or a domestic servant for life. He says that there is
a tradition of selling women in the garb of "bride
money" in some tribal belts of Pakistan, where
a man could buy a girl one-third his age after paying
the parents the money they want.
The sale of women also has an ominous international
dimension.
"Innocent women who are sold in the underworld
are also being used to carry drugs to foreign destinations,"
Zia said. He pointed out that purchased women from Pakistan's
remote towns of Multan and Rahim Yar Khan are sent to
Saudi Arabia during the Hajj, or Muslim pilgrimage,
season to bring in riyals.
Zia said non-governmental organizations working in
the fields of women's and children's rights in south
Asia have coalesced to form a network called Resistance,
and a draft is awaiting signature by the governments
of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation.
SAARC comprises India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal,
Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Maldives.
"This is a major breakthrough, as the SAARC government's
signature would mean the states acknowledge for the
first time that trafficking of women and children was
a cross border problem that knows no frontiers in South
Asia," said Zia.
Resistance has joined hands with SANFEC (South Asian
Network for Food, Ecology and Culture), said Zia, as
the sale and trafficking of women and children is directly
linked also to the issue of food sovereignty.
"Studies have shown that farmers driven to despair,
either because of mechanization of agriculture, use
of bio-technology or any natural disaster, are forced
to sell their women and children to save themselves
from starving to death," Zia explained.
The global Human Rights Watch has an ongoing campaign
against the business, saying, "Trafficking in persons
-- the illegal and highly profitable recruitment, transport
or sale of human beings for the purpose of exploiting
their labor -- is a slavery-like practice that must
be eliminated."
Groups
fight smugglers who sell kids to be jockeys
Boy's kidnapping shows lengths crime ring will
go to find jockeys for camel races
Web posted Sunday, September 24, 2000
The Associated Press
 DUBAI,
United Arab Emirates (AP) -- All 10-year-old Mohammed
remembers is meeting a mysterious red-bearded man in
his village in Pakistan, and then waking up from a drug-induced
stupor in an airport thousands of miles away.
One other thing: he says the red-bearded man told him
he was now a camel racer, at which point he fled the
airport.
The case has thrown renewed light on an abuse that
is gaining increasing attention from human rights advocates:
the use of children as jockeys in the camel races that
are popular in the Persian Gulf.
Although the United Arab Emirates banned the use of
child jockeys seven years ago, tiny Pakistanis or Bangladeshis
are still being smuggled into the oil-rich Gulf with
promises -- usually false -- of wealth. Since they are
lighter than adult jockeys, children as young as 4 have
reportedly been forced to race camels and risk dangerous
falls.
Police believe little Mohammed Zubair Arrian was kidnapped,
drugged and smuggled into Abu Dhabi on a Pakistan International
Airlines flight from Islamabad on a forged travel document.
The boy said he met the red-bearded man in Medina Syedan,
his village in Punjab province. He remembered losing
consciousness in his village, but nothing more until
he awoke at Abu Dhabi International Airport.
"When I opened my eyes, I was in a totally different
world," the hazel-eyed, brown-haired child said
in an interview. The red-bearded man "threatened
to kill me if I made any noise. But as soon as he turned
his back, I ran for my life."
A passer-by found him lost and crying on the streets
of Abu Dhabi on Sept. 6, and turned him over to police.
Ansar Burney, a Pakistani human rights lawyer, happened
to be visiting the Emirates, heard of the case and approached
Emirates authorities and the Pakistani Embassy. He said
Mohammed phoned his father, who had filed a missing
persons complaint at his village police station. The
father sobbed with relief, Burney said.
The red-bearded man is still at large.
The Emirates Camel Racing Association declined comment
on the use of children for camel racing, refusing even
to say what penalties are imposed for violating its
1993 ban on jockeys under the age of 15.
A 1999 U.S. State Department Human Rights Report on
the Emirates said "relevant labor laws often are
not enforced, as those who own racing camels and use
the children come from powerful local families that
are in effect above the law."
London-based Antislavery International, which has campaigned
against the use of child jockeys, says it knows of no
one being penalized for the practice.
How could a drugged child be smuggled into a foreign
airport? Burney said airport, airline and immigration
workers often take bribes to look the other way.
"God saved this boy; he is very lucky to have
escaped," Burney said. "We are grateful for
the Emirates authorities, who did everything possible
to help us in this case." He said he was arranging
to get Mohammed home.
Although Mohammed seems to have been the victim of
an outright kidnapping, some parents are so poor that
they sell their children to men recruiting camel jockeys,
to begging or drug smuggling rings.
Burney was credited four years ago with bringing home
a group of five children smuggled to the Emirates to
ride camels. In 1998, he persuaded Saudi authorities
to release 22 children who were used to smuggle drugs
into the kingdom.
Kidnapped
children sold into slavery as camel racers
Hidden horror behind the racetracks of the emirs
Peter Beaumont, foreign affairs editor
Sunday June 3, 2001
The Observer (London)
At least 30 boys a month are being kidnapped in
Pakistan to feed the banned slave trade in racing camel
jockeys in the United Arab Emirates.
According to a human rights organisation in Pakistan,
the number of boys - often as young as four - smuggled
abroad to work at camel camps is rapidly rising.
The Karachi-based Ansar Burney Welfare Trust (founded
by Ansar Burney, a human rights lawyer) claimed last
week that 2,000 boys have been taken to the camps over
the last two years, despite laws introduced in the UAE
in 1998 forbidding the use of small boys in the often
dangerous sport.
The trade in boys for camel racing has long been the
subject of a campaign by both the UN and Anti-Slavery
International. Evidence, however, suggests the practice
is becoming more prevalent.
According to a report last year by Anti-Slavery International,
the children are often kidnapped, sold by their parents
or relatives, or taken on false pretences.
In the UAE the boys are often underfed and subjected
to crash diets to make them as light as possible. Some
children have reported being beaten while working as
jockeys, and others have been seriously injured during
races.
The rules of the Emirates Camel Racing Federation forbid
the use of riders under the age of 14, or weighing less
than 45 kilograms.
The UAE government said in 1998 it was doing its best
to eradicate the practice and that 'any camel owners
found to be in breach of the rules should be severely
punished'.
Anti-slavery campaigners have had some successes in
returning camel slaves. Two years ago an eight-year-old
Pakistani boy, who had allegedly been kidnapped to work
as a camel jockey, was repatriated by the authorities.
He was one of the luckier ones. In August 1999, a four-year-old
jockey from Bangladesh was found abandoned and close
to death in the desert. In 2000, Anti-Slavery International
reported the case of a four-year-old jockey from Bangladesh
whose employer burnt him on his legs for under-performing.
The boy was left crippled.
Although some of the children are taken as indentured
labourers with the parents' consent, in other cases
children are drugged and abducted.
All 10-year-old Mohammed Zubair Arrian remembers of
his abduction last year is meeting a mysterious red-bearded
man in his village in Pakistan, and then waking up from
a drug-induced stupor in an airport thousands of miles
away. The red-bearded man told him he was now a camel
racer at which point he fled the airport.
Police believe Mohammed was drugged and smuggled into
Abu Dhabi on a Pakistan International Airlines flight
on a forged travel document.
The boy said he met the red-bearded man in Medina Syedan,
his village in Punjab province. He remembered losing
consciousness, but nothing more until he awoke at Abu
Dhabi airport.
'When I opened my eyes, I was in a totally different
world,' Mohamed said. The abductor 'threatened to kill
me if I made any noise. But as soon as he turned his
back, I ran for my life.'
A passer-by found him crying on the streets of Abu
Dhabi on 6 September, and turned him over to police.
He was eventually brought back to Pakistan when Burney
heard about his case.
In November UAE police rescued two other Pakistani
brothers aged six and four who had been kidnapped to
work as jockeys.
They had raided a camel farm in the oasis town of Al
Ain on a tip from the Pakistani embassy and rescued
the two boys. The six-year-old, Shajar, was being treated
in hospital for leg injuries.
Burney maintains that most of the agents kidnapping
the children were Pakistani. He said they could 'easily
get fake birth certificates, passports, and even fake
parents, so the camel owners thought they were brought
in with full consent'.
Children are sold for up to US $3,000 (£2,100)
each.
Pakistan
to hang woman despite doubts over trial
The Observer, London
Rory McCarthy in Islamabad
Sunday August 5, 2001
The military regime in Pakistan is preparing to execute
a young, illiterate woman convict this week despite
mounting concerns from human rights groups about the
fairness of her tial.
Rubina Ansari, 24, was due to be hanged last month,
but the Supreme Court gave her a last-minute stay of
execution after the government came under pressure to
commute the sentence to imprisonment for life.
If Pakistan's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf,
does not reduce the sentence, she will be hanged as
early as tomorrow. She would be the first woman to be
executed in Pakistan for 16 years.
Ansari was arrested in December 1998 and charged with
the murder of Hajjan Aziz Begum, a wealthy, 70-yer-old
woman, in Sargodha, 120 miles south of Islamabad. The
court was told Ansari had met the woman while she was
travelling home on a bus during the Muslim holy month
of Ramadan.
She invited the woman back to her home to break her
fast at the end of the day. Once she was inside she
allegedly attacked the old woman with an axe, cut off
her hand and mutilated her body.
The prosecution said she stole the woman's gold necklaces
and bangles, left the body in her home and hid the jewellery
at her sister's house But Ansari denied the murder and
insisted that she was not at home at the time of the
killing.
Rights groups in Pakistan have raised serious concerns
about the trial. All evidence against Ansari was circumstantial.
No fingerprints were taken and no evidence was given
to place her at the scene of the murder. The only witnesses
produced were police officers or relatives of the victim.
No defence witnesses were called.
Ansari was four months pregnant when she was arrested
and suffered a miscarriage in jail. She claims she was
beaten and tortured by police. Her sister, Shamma, 21,
was arrested at the same time. She too was pregnant
and also miscarried while in police custody. She was
later acquitted.
'Both the women were clearly treated in a cruel and
inhumane way,' said Ansar Burney, a leading Pakistani
human rights campaigner who met Ansari in jail last
month.
He said she was now sharing a cell with four other
women condemned to die. In total, 24 women in Multan's
women's jail are on death row. Burney's legal petition
last month convinced the Supreme Court to delay the
execution and he has spent the past week in London in
meetings with Amnesty International and other organisations.
The authorities at Multan's women's jail, where Ansari
is due to hang, face a further problem. Some religious
groups have complained that, under Islamic laws, a female
should not be executed by a man. But Pakistan possesses
no female executioners.
Pakistani
POW's in Indian Jails
 ISLAMABAD,
September 12, 2001 (PNS): The "Ansar Burney Welfare
Trust International" has urged the Indian government
to immediately release 200 Pakistani Prisoners of War
lodged in different Indian Prisons since last three
decades.
In a SOS letter to the Indian Prime Minister, Atal
Bihari Vajpayee, the renowned human rights activist
and Chairman of the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International,
Ansar Burney urged the Prime Minister of India to release
such Prisoners of War for the betterment of humanity
in the South Asian region.
Letter said, according to information there were around
2000 such prisoners in India. But due to hard suffering
and severe torture, nearly 1800 such unfortunate persons
have died. Though according to information, there are
still 200 POWs in Indian Prisons.
The "Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International"
has come to know of this horrible fact as hundreds of
families of such Prisoners of War have contacted the
Trust for their release from Indian Prisons.
According to these unfortunate families (who have been
waiting for the release of their loved ones from Indian
Prisons for the last three decades) due to suffering
third degree torture, some of those prisoners lost their
mental sense and have allegedly been dumped in Mental
Hospitals while some became paralyzed.
"When these families contacted me and sought our
help, I felt it my duty as a human rights campaigner
to offer my humanitarian services to search for those
unfortunate prisoners," letter said.
"Your Excellency is therefore requested to provide
Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International the details
of such Pakistani Prisoners of War in Indian prisons.
It is a very serious humanitarian issue and we would
be very much pleased and willing to help in the matter.
We would make every effort to search for such persons
and get them released.
”Please let us know exactly how many prisoners
of war are in Indian Prisons and please give us information
on their current whereabouts. Please also give us the
names of all the unfortunate prisoners who have survived
in the last three decades so their families can be traced
and reunited with them," Ansar Burney wrote in
his letter.
Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International is also contacting
the Pakistani government in this regard, he said.
"Your immediate response will help our mission,
so please reply as soon as possible. This is a serious
issue and if such prisoners of war are in Indian prisons,
as it seems to be according to our information, then
their suffering must be stopped." Letter said.
Supreme
Court stays Rubina's execution
By Our Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD, July 9: A Supreme Court bench on Monday stayed
the execution of Ms Rubina, a condemned prisoner in
Multan central jail, until the decision of her mercy
petition by the President of Pakistan.
Acting suo moto on the application moved by Ansar Burney
Welfare Trust, CJ Irshad Hasan Khan, had ordered SC
office to register it as a human rights case.
The case was placed before a three-judges bench, comprising
Chief Justice Irshad Hasan Khan, Justice Chaudhry Mohammad
Arif, and Justice Qazi Mohammad Farooq, which stayed
the execution of Ms Rubina.
The court observed that the mercy petition moved on
behalf of Ms Rubina should be disposed of by the President
of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan on merit and in
accordance with law as expeditiously as possible.
When the case was taken up by the SC bench, Advocate
General Punjab Maqbool Elahi Malik, who was present
in the court in some other case stated that it would
be fair if, till the decision of her mercy petition,
the execution of Ms. Rubina, was stayed.
In the application filed by Ansar Burney Trust, it
was stated that the woman had already suffered a lot
during police investigation.
First, her cruel husband divorced her leaving her alone
with her seven-year-old daughter. Ms Rubina was seven
months pregnant at the time of her detention. It was
further stated that she was brutalized during detention,
as a result she had a miscarriage but no case of murder
was registered against police.
Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International has moved
a mercy petition to the President of Pakistan, requesting
him to convert her death sentence into life imprisonment.
Copy of the SC order was supplied to advocate-general,
Punjab, secretary interior ministry, Government of Pakistan,
secretary law, justice and human rights, principal secretary
to the President of Pakistan, secretary home department,
government of Punjab, Lahore and Mr Ansar Burney, attorney/chairman.
Mark B.
Taylor visited under age child
camel jockey shelter home at Abu Dhabi:
By Our Staff Reporter
Abu Dhabi, February 06 (H.R.N.I): Commissioner/Senior
Coordinator, Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking
in Persons, Office of the Under Secretary for Global
Affairs, U.S. Department of State at Washington, D.C.
Mr Mark B. Taylor, visited the under age child camel
jockeys Shelter Home at Abu Dhabi and met the rescued
children. The first rehabilitation centre for underage
Child Camel Jockeys under the supervision of the Ansar
Burney Welfare Trust International at Abu Dhabi (UAE)
is in accordance with the UAE government's policy to
eliminate the use of underage boys in this sport.
On arrival of Mr Mark Taylor at the Center, the volunteers
and staff of the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust International
received him. Ms Susan K Raddant, Political Secretary
at the United States Embassy at Abu Dhabi, accompanied
him. He spent more than hour with the underage children.
Mark Taylor lauded the efforts of Ansar Burney Welfare
Trust International in this regard.
The Centre was established on the orders of His Highness
General Shaikh Mohammad Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince
of Abu Dhabi and Deputy Supreme Commander of the United
Arab Emirates Armed Forces, to eliminate the use of
under-age camel jockeys in races.
Children
from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sudan are still
being smuggled to the United Arab Emirates to work as
camel jockeys, despite a law passed two years ago banning
their use.
By Lucy Williamson
BBC News, Dubai
 It
is illegal for race clubs to use jockeys younger than
15 or weighing less than 45 kilos.
But young children can still be seen at racetracks across
the UAE, and aid workers estimate there are up to 40,000
working across the Gulf.
Now the Sheikh of Abu Dhabi has given his backing to
a new centre, set up to find and rehabilitate child
camel jockeys.
Starting over
One of its residents is Akbar. He's mad about
football and the best thing about his new home is the
chance to play with other boys.
"There was a child in the camp... because
he wanted to leave the camp... one of the racetrack
owners ran over [him] in a truck and killed him"
Akbar |
Akbar is eight years old, and has spent almost all
his life living and working as a camel jockey at a race
track in Abu Dhabi.
Four days before I met him, he was picked up by police
and brought to the new rehabilitation centre, the brain-child
of human rights activist, Ansar Burney.
"We are giving them an education," Mr Burney
tells me, as he shows me round the neat classroom and
air-conditioned bedrooms.
"How to sleep, how to take a bath, how to go to
the toilet: they don't know how to use the cupboards;
they don't know how to sleep on beds! This is all new
for them."
 But
for many children starting a new life also means dealing
with problems left by their old one.
Tucked into a corner of the complex is a small, well-stocked
clinic.
It is not uncommon for child jockeys to fall off and
be injured while racing, and their illegal status means
race track owners are often reluctant to take them to
hospital.
Instead, says Ansar Burney, the boys often arrive with
broken hands or broken legs. And many, he says, have
been sodomised.
Harsh past
One boy shows me the scar he was left with after being
trampled by a camel.
 Crudely
stitched, it stretches from his chest down to his hips.
Many boys here remember children at the race tracks
being injured. Others like Akbar, remember even worse.
"There was a child in the camp, and because he
wanted to leave the camp and go to Dubai, one of the
racetrack owners ran over the child in a truck and killed
him," he tells me.
Few boys have any idea who their real parents are,
or where they come from.
And that, says Ansar Burney, makes it difficult to
trace their families - or to get them out of the clubs
in the first place.
"The police ask me for the name of the child,
the father's name, the name of the place and the name
of the owner of the camp, so it's very difficult to
find this information for each and every boy; these
boys arrived at the racetrack when they were six months
old.
"But I'm trying my best to save as many children
as I can."
Others are trying their best to stop him.
There are powerful interests connected to the camel
racing sport in the UAE. Ansar Burney says he's already
received threats against his family.
The centre is housed in a military base.
While armed guards remain outside, the boys can enjoy
cartoons and football. But they have few or no family
connections or educational prospects beyond their new
home.
So the question is - where will they go from here?
Call
to suspend capital punishment until reforms
Abu Dhabi | By Aftab Kazmi | 07-07-2001
Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf has been
urged by a leading human rights activist visiting the
UAE to suspend capital punishment until he reforms the
judicial system. The call comes in the wake of a Pakistani
court's decision to sentence a 33-year-old woman to
death.
Rubina, found guilty of killing another women in the
Sargodha district of the Punjab Province, is awaiting
her execution, scheduled for July 17, after her appeals
were rejected by the Lahore High Court and former Pakistani
President Rafiq Tarar.
She is the ninth women to get the death penalty in
Pakistan. Ghulam Fatima was the first to be hanged in
1956, in Mianwali district. The last death sentences
were carried out in 1985, when two sisters Munawara
and Sanaran were executed in Jehlum district.
"Rubina's case is very strange, it was an ordinary
case of murder but was tried in a special anti-terrorism
court which is not fair," said Ansar Burney, advocate
and international human rights activist and chairman
of the Ansar Burney Welfare Trust.
Burney, who is visiting UAE, said his organisation
has sent several mercy petitions to President Musharraf
requesting him to at least convert Rubina's sentence
to life imprisonment. He criticised the judicial system
of the country, saying that it needs immediate reforms
as influential and rich people are exploiting it.
"Reforms and suspension of the capital punishments
becomes a need of the hour especially after a Supreme
Court of Pakistan's recent ruling against two senior
judges who were find taking benefits from the former
government for making favourable judgments."
Burney claimed false witnesses and evidence can easily
be bought in Pakistan and there are a large number of
occurrences in which innocent people are entrapped in
fabricated cases by rich and influential people.
"I believe General Musharraf should take an immediate
note of corruption in Pakistan's judicial system because
it the the only institution that can help in restoring
a corruption-free society based on justice, peace and
the rule of law in the country."
Burney said Rubina had suffered a lot during the police
investigation. First her husband divorced her leaving
Rubina and her nine-year-old daughter alone. The seven
month pregnant Rubina also had miscarriage. "In
this situation, if she was hanged who will take care
of her innocent daughter?"
Burney said he is not against punishing criminal, but
under the present system all capital punishments should
be suspended.
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