{"id":23666,"date":"2016-03-04T02:18:45","date_gmt":"2016-03-04T02:18:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/pakistan-religious-leaders-slam-women-s\/"},"modified":"2016-03-04T02:18:04","modified_gmt":"2016-03-04T02:18:04","slug":"pakistan-religious-leaders-slam-women-s","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/pakistan-religious-leaders-slam-women-s\/","title":{"rendered":"Pakistan religious leaders slam women&#8217;s protection act"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>{Act by Punjab state gives legal protection to women suffering from domestic, psychological, and sexual violence.}<\/p>\n<p>A law giving women protection from violence and abuse in Pakistan has been criticised by a religious body for being incompatible with Islam.<\/p>\n<p>The Women&#8217;s Protection Act, passed by Pakistan&#8217;s largest province of Punjab last week, gives legal protection to women from domestic, psychological and sexual violence.<\/p>\n<p>The law also calls for the creation of a free abuse-reporting hotline and the establishment of women&#8217;s shelters.<\/p>\n<p>Since its passage in the Punjab assembly, some conservative religious leaders have denounced the new law as being in conflict with the Quran, as well as Pakistan&#8217;s constitution.<\/p>\n<p>Fazlur Rehman, the chief of one of Pakistan&#8217;s largest religious parties, the Jamiat-i-Ulema Islam, said the law was in conflict with both Islam and the country&#8217;s constitution.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This law makes a man insecure,&#8221; Reuters quoted him as saying. &#8220;This law is an attempt to make Pakistan a Western colony again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>OPINION: Pakistan\u2019s history of rape impunity<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The whole law is wrong,&#8221;  Muhammad Khan Sherani , the head of the Council of Islamic Ideology said at a news conference, in which he claimed the law was &#8220;un-Islamic&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Jail sentences<\/p>\n<p>The new law establishes district-level panels to investigate reports of abuse, and mandates the use of GPS bracelets to keep track of offenders.<\/p>\n<p>It also sets punishments of up to a year in jail for violators of court orders related to domestic violence, with that period rising to two years for repeat offenders.<\/p>\n<p>In 2013, more than 5,800 cases of violence against women were reported in Punjab alone, the province where Wednesday&#8217;s law was passed, according to the Aurat Foundation, a women&#8217;s rights advocacy group.<\/p>\n<p>Those cases represented 74 percent of the national total that year, the latest for which data is available. <\/p>\n<p>Pakistani women defy threats to run for parliament.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-10755 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/30c5d8522e124fb196dd14a17e52be7f_18.jpg\" alt=\"The law safeguards women from domestic violence, as well as sexual and psychological abuse\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{Act by Punjab state gives legal protection to women suffering from domestic, psychological, and sexual violence.} A law giving women protection from violence and abuse in Pakistan has been criticised by a religious body for being incompatible with Islam. The Women&#8217;s Protection Act, passed by Pakistan&#8217;s largest province of Punjab last week, gives legal protection [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[48],"tags":[101],"byline":[2482],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-23666","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics-48","tag-internationl","byline-reuters"],"bylines":[{"id":2482,"name":"REUTERS","slug":"reuters","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"contributors":[{"id":2482,"name":"REUTERS","slug":"reuters","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":null}],"featured_image":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23666","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23666"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23666\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23666"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23666"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23666"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=23666"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=23666"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}