ISLAMABAD, 28 November 2006 — President General Pervez Musharraf yesterday ratified the Women’s Protection and Empowerment Bill to make it a part of the statute. The bill, meant to amend the Hudood Ordinance, has triggered widespread protests from religious parties. Even some members from the ruling Pakistan Muslim League have reservations about it.
“This is un-Islamic, I urge Pakistan Muslim League (Q) President Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain to resign immediately,” Mufti Munibur Rahman, chairman of the Central Ruet-e-Hilal Committee, said yesterday. “I have gone through the bill and found it contrary to Shariah,” he said.
The Muttaheda Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), a religious grouping, opposes the bill but rifts among its leaders have recently cropped up over resignations from the Parliament to protest the passage of the bill.
Hafiz Hussain Ahmad, an important leader of Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, has resigned from the National Assembly, but several leaders of other parties within the grouping believe they should seek support of other opposition parties outside the alliance before quitting the assemblies.
There are some 64 MMA legislators in the Parliament and if they resign, the government will hold by-elections on the vacant seats. “Their political careers will come to an end if they quit assemblies,” Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Muhammad Ali Durrani said yesterday.
The MMA is relying heavily on another opposition grouping, the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy (ARD), hoping to get its support on the women’s issue. But one of the major parties in the ARD, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party, has supported the government on the women’s bill.
However, in view of the changing political scenario, the PPP seems to be weighing options for its next move.
