'Pakistani police attack journalists attempting to cover rape allegations'

[News_Editor]

'Pakistani police attack journalists attempting to cover rape allegations'

2012-01-26 18:29:30 GMT+7 (ICT)

RAWALPINDI (BNO NEWS) -- Two journalists were attacked by police officers in northern Pakistan on Wednesday when they attempted to cover a story involving police officers who allegedly tried to rape a girl.

Geo News Television reported that one of its reporters and a cameraman had arrived at Benazir Bhutto Hospital in the city of Rawalpindi to cover the story of a girl who had reportedly slit her throat during a rape attempt by police officers.

The channel said officers were working with the alleged attacker to stop Geo News from reporting the story, which police allegedly tried to cover up as a suicide attempt. "Cops were pressuring the hospital administration to discharge the girl even in this critical condition," Geo TV reported on its website.

Geo TV said police officers inflicted 'serious bodily harm' on the reporter and his cameraman, although it gave no details about their injuries or their conditions. The channel said the officers had also destroyed their equipment.

Police were unavailable for comment.

Several journalist groups have labeled Pakistan as one of the most dangerous, if not the world's most dangerous, place for media professionals. According to the Rural Media Network, a Pakistani non-governmental organization, more than a dozen journalists were killed in the country last year.

Most notably in 2011, the Pakistan Bureau Chief of Asia Times Online, Syed Saleem Shahzad, was found dead in northeastern Pakistan in late May. Human rights organizations and the U.S. government have accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency of carrying out the murder, although the Pakistani government rejected those accusations.

The United Nations and other organizations have said Pakistani authorities have failed to properly investigate the murders and disappearances of journalists.

-- © BNO News All rights reserved 2012-01-26

[ralphlsasser]

That's no mans land where the cops do as they please. (Inflammatory remark edited out).

Edited January 26, 2012 by Scott
Inflammatory remark edited out

[Scott]

An inflammatory remark has been edited out of a post.

[maidu]

Hate to say it, but Pakistan is sliding down a slope of worsening conditions. As with most middle eastern countries, muslim extremists will take increasing amounts of control. Sharia law will prevail, and women and girls will suffer the most. When you have Islamist extremists (with gangs of untouchable 'religious police' roaming around), you have gang rapes. The cops implicated in the OP may not have been 'religious police' per se, but they act like it - or at the least, they can hide behind that veil of being hyper religious..

[Steely Dan]

There is little that can be said in defense of some of the goings on in Pakistan, however I did read recently of Indian police being convicted of the mass rape of lower-caste women some 19 years ago. The difference, albeit after a long wait is the officers face up to 10 years in jail. In Pakistan for a woman to successfully gain a prosecution for someone who rapes her it is necessary to have three female witnesses as under their religiously based law the testament of three women is needed to equal that of one man; this in effect makes prosecution next to impossible not to mention the woman in question is likely to be killed by her own family because of the 'shame' she has brought on them.

Here is the distinction, apologists for this sort of case may claim it is cultural not religious practice which is responsible and true enough India has some similar cases, however the main impediment to accountability and progress from archaic cultural practice is undeniably religiously based laws.

[maidu]

I can believe their warped laws dictate that 3 womens' testimony = 1 man's. However, that doesn't mean they need 3 women to convict. I heard they need something like 5 men's testimony to convict. So that would might be something ridiculous, like 3 men and six women for the same case. Because of such sicko laws stacked against victims, it's sounds like it's relatively easy to get away with rape in such countries. Indeed, it almost sounds like the laws encourage rape for those same reasons. Some more reasons rape is rampant: If the rapist marries the girl, then he gets off. So that encourages some types of men to rape, particularly if they're lusting after a beautiful young girl (regardless of the age of the man). There are more than a few stories of vigilante 'religious police' who take it upon themselves to patrol the streets at night. If they find a young woman walking around unescorted, they're apt to gang rape her in order to 'teach her a lesson.' Repercussions are impossible.

The #1 reason it's easy to get away with rape in such sicko countries is that very few girls will want to attract added attention to themselves by pointing a finger at rapists. The girls are already maked for life as sluts and non-marriagable, so why should they publicize the horror to gawking public and grinning police interrogators?