Posted on 05/28/2007 7:45:13 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Pak lesbian couple want to be put in same jail: Lawyer
May 25, 2007 16:00 IST
The lawyer for a Pakistani lesbian couple, who have been put in separate jails recently for marrying, has petitioned the court that they should be put in the same prison.
Rana Sajjad Hussain, lawyer for the lesbian couple Shumail Raj, 31, who underwent a sex change operation 16 years ago, and 26-year-old Shahzina Tariq, filed a petition in the Lahore high court asking for an order to put them in the same jail and to seek permission to meet them for legal consultation.
The couple was sent to separate jails on May 22 by the Lahore high court, which termed their marriage as an "unnatural act" not allowed by Islam or Pakistani law after a medical examination showed that Shumail was a woman.
Raj was sent to the Kot Lakhpat Jail and Shahzina to a jail in Faisalabad.
The petition, expected to be heard on Friday by the high court, has also scheduled responses to the showcause notices issued against the couple.
Judge Khawaja Sharif, hearing Pakistan's first-ever case of same-sex marriage, issued notices to the two asking them why they should not be charged for marrying a person of the same sex, a crime which carries a punishment of two years in jail to life imprisonment.
The court also asked them why they should not be charged for submitting a false affidavit claiming that Shumail was a man.
If found guilty, they face imprisonment of up to seven years.
The judge had also issued a showcause notice to Dr Abdul Hafeez of Kardar Specialist Hospital in Faisalabad who had removed Shumail's breasts and uterus.
The notice demands the law under which he was authorised to perform such a surgery, the Daily Times said.
23 May, 2007 l 1746 hrs ISTlPTI
ISLAMABAD: Facing an almost certain separation and a possible prison term, Pakistan's first known lesbian couple has threatened to commit suicide and appealed to President Pervez Musharraf as well as the international community for help.
Shumail Raj, 31, who underwent a sex change operation 16 years ago, and 26-year-old Shahzina Tariq, were sent to separate jails on Tuesday by the Lahore High Court which termed their marriage as an "unnatural act" not allowed by Islam or Pakistani law after a medical examination showed that Shumail was a woman.
The couple wept throughout their journey in a police van and discussed the possibility of killing themselves if they were separated, a report in the Daily Times .
Earlier talking to reporters outside the courtroom, both said they loved each other and nobody could separate them. They appealed to NGOs and the government for help.
The couple appealed to President Pervez Musharraf saying that he should help them as he believed in a liberal society.
The couple, who was arrested on Sunday, said their detention was unjust and that they would also seek help from international community.
Judge Khawaja Sharif, hearing Pakistan's first ever case of same-sex marriage, issued notices to the two asking them why they should not be charged for marrying a person of the same sex, a crime which carries a punishment of two years in jail to life imprisonment.
It also asked them why they should not be charged for submitting a false affidavit to the court claiming that Shumail was a man. If found guilty, the lovers face imprisonment of upto seven years.
That is exactly how I felt upon coming across this article.:-)
Hmm. Must be tough to be a transgendered lesbian in Pakistan.
No, seriously. If he was born a man with Y chromosomes, no operation can really make him into a woman, except in the fevered imaginations of the gender benders. He is a neutered man, not a woman.
There is a question whether the marriage of a neutered man is valid, perhaps, but they are not, properly speaking (that is with regard to reality rather than postmodernist duckspeak) a lesbian couple.
I don’t know why the Pakistani legal authorities should allow their traditional views to be bent by this postmodernist nonsense.
There. Legal advice for free.
Maybe I misread the article, but it looks like they were both born female and one of them had their equipment altered so they could pass as a man. Either way, I don’t think anybody should end up in prison for it. Maybe a mental hospital, but not a prison.
WTF? “She” has grown a beard!
Shots of testosterone, probably.
That doesn’t look like a woman.
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