Pakistani woman risks death by stoning for adultery

Zafran Bibi’s case will now be heard by the highest court on Islamic issues, the federal Sharia court in Islamabad, although no date has yet been given.
Bibi originally went to the police two years ago to register a case of rape, but she herself was instead charged with having an adulterous affair.
She gave birth to a daughter while her husband was in prison and a court in the conservative town of Kohat in North-West Frontier Province found her guilty of adultery.
She is currently in jail in the town with her seven-month-old baby and has not been allowed to meet human-rights groups or journalists.
A judge in Peshawar suspended the sentence and her appeal will be heard by a full bench of the Islamic or Sharia court in Islamabad.
On Saturday, Pakistan´s President Pervez Musharraf said such a sentence had never been carried out and should never be carried out.
Human-rights groups in Pakistan say the Islamic laws which were applied in this case discriminate against women and lead to thousands being tortured, accused and jailed each year.
On Thursday nearly 20 female activists protesting Bibi’s sentencing scuffled with police in the Pakistani capital Islamabad. Eyewitness said the protesters, belonging to the Alliance for the Repeal of Discriminatory Laws, were manhandled and temporarily detained by police to prevent them from marching towards the presidential house.
President Musharraf said the Federal Sharia Court would never allow this sentence to be carried out, but he did not give any further comment on whether he would consider repealing such laws. The country´s last military ruler, Gen. Muhammad Zia-ul-haq, introduced Islamic law in the early 1980s to create a constituency for himself among the Islamic clergy and fundamentalist Muslims. Activists have since been demanding these laws be repealed.
There have been a few cases in which women have been sentenced to be stoned to death but none has been carried out.