Free Republic

Mukhtar Mai, the Pakistani woman who won international fame for speaking out against her gang rape ordered by a village council in her country, is in the US to receive an award for courage from American fashion magazine Glamour, which has chosen her the 'Woman of the Year 2005'. Mai, who arrived in Chicago on Saturday and would attend several function there to raise funds for the earthquake victims in Pakistan, would be presented the award at a star-studded function in New York on November 2. The magazine has selected her 'Woman of the Year 2005', an honour bestowed in...

No wonder the Pakistan government can't catch Osama bin Laden. It is too busy harassing, detaining - and now kidnapping - a gang-rape victim for daring to protest and for planning a visit to the United States. Last fall I wrote about Mukhtaran Bibi, a woman who was sentenced by a tribal council in Pakistan to be gang-raped because of an infraction supposedly committed by her brother. Four men raped Ms. Mukhtaran, then village leaders forced her to walk home nearly naked in front of a jeering crowd of 300. Ms. Mukhtaran was supposed to have committed suicide. Instead, with...

Last week, Pakistan's Federal Shariat Court—the nation's highest Islamic court—vacated an appeals court decision that had outraged the world. In essence, the appeals court had acquitted five of the six men convicted in the 2002 "honor rape" of Mukhtar Mai. Her ongoing story may well foreshadow the future of Muslim women who suffer under tribal law and other oppressive traditions. Hers is a savage tale of brutalization and courage, with confusing twists and a resolution that is uncertain. But it is a story of hope, which provides reason for optimism. In it, the West provides an invaluable voice of conscience...