Pakistan's military regime is due to execute a young,...

Pakistan's military regime is due to execute a young, illiterate female convict this week in the face of protests from human rights groups about the fairness of her trial.
Rubina Ansari, 24, was due to be hanged in July but the Supreme Court gave her a stay of execution after the Government faced pressure to reduce the sentence to life imprisonment.
If Pakistan's military ruler, General Pervez Musharraf, refuses to reduce the sentence she will be hanged as early as tomorrow. She would be the first woman to be executed in Pakistan for 16 years.
Ansari was arrested in December 1998 and charged with the murder of Hajjan Aziz Begum, 70, a wealthy woman in Sargodha, 200km south of Islamabad.
The court was told Ansari met the woman while she was travelling home on a bus during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. She invited the woman back to her home to break her fast at the end of the day. Once inside she attacked her with an axe, cut off her hand and mutilated her body so badly her son could not identify her.
She then stole the woman's gold necklaces and bangles, left the body in her home and hid the jewellery at her sister's house.
But Ansari denied the murder, insisting she was not at home at the time of the killing.
Ansari was four months pregnant when she was arrested and suffered a miscarriage in jail. She claims she was beaten and tortured by police.
Her sister, Shamma, 21, was also arrested. She too was pregnant and also miscarried in custody. She was acquitted.
"Both the women were clearly treated in a cruel and inhumane way," said Ansar Burney, a leading Pakistani human rights campaigner who met Ansari in jail last month. "We want to bring a case against the police for what they have done. She faced severe third-degree torture and was given electric shocks by the police."
Mr Burney's legal petition last month convinced the Supreme Court to delay the execution and he has spent the past week in London in meetings about the case with Amnesty International and other organisations.
"Rubina Ansari was sentenced to death on a murder charge after pre-trial and trial procedures which appear to have fallen short of international standards," Amnesty said.
Rights groups in Pakistan have raised serious concerns about the trial. All the evidence against Ansari was circumstantial. No fingerprints were taken from the crime scene and no evidence was given to place her at the scene of the murder. The only witnesses called were police officers or relatives of the victim. No defence witnesses were called.
Ansari's case was heard by a special anti-terrorism court, set up to provide quick trials for serious terrorist offences involving state security.
"The trial was illegal because it should not have been heard in a terrorism court," Mr Burney said. "The victim's family had connections in the army. That is why it went to this court."
In April 1999 the anti-terrorism court found Ansari guilty of murder and robbery and sentenced her to hang.
The appeals in this case have been heard unusually quickly. In November 1999 the Lahore High Court turned down an appeal in 30 minutes and Ansari was not told until it was too late to appeal to the Supreme Court.