India Uncut

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Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Musharraf's Pakistan

A place where a victim of rape is detained in a psychiatric hospital so that she can't tell her story to the world and embarrass the country. No, I'm not talking about Mukhtar Mai, but about Dr Shazia Khalid, the courageous lady who gives Pakistan far more reason for pride than Pervez Musharraf, whose rhetoric of a progressive Pakistan is a matter of public relations and not conviction. Read Nicholas Kristof's two excellent articles on Dr Khalid here and here.

In the first of those Kristof quotes Dr Shershah Syed, a Karachi gynecologist, as saying:
When I treat rape victims, I tell the girls not to go to the police. Because if she goes to the police, the police will rape her.
The second is the heartrending story of how the authorities in Pakistan tried to shut Dr Khalid up, even threatening to kill her, and how her husband supported her through the torment.

(Link via email from Arun Simha.)
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