Murdering Women Declared Legal [Excerpts]
January 26, 2009: Pakistan has a problem with women. In the tribal areas, Islamic radicals burn schools (170 in the last two years) for girls and declare it illegal for women to work outside the home. The parliament openly condemns this Taliban/al Qaeda policy. But at the same time, the nations highest court declares that honor killings (murdering a young woman for marrying or dating someone her family does not approve of) are not crimes. The high illiteracy rate among women has long been a major reason for lack of economic progress in Islamic nations. In Pakistan, overcoming the problem means going to war with Islamic conservatives, and the government has been reluctant to do that.
There was a sharp increase in violence in Pakistan last year. Deaths went from 907 in 2005, to 1,600 in 2006, 3,500 in 2007 and 8,000 last year. Pakistan suffered more from Islamic radical violence than neighboring Afghanistan. Last year, about 6,000 died in Afghanistan, while Pakistan lost 8,000. There were 2,100 terrorist attacks last year, leaving 2,300 dead. Battles between terrorists and security forces left 3,200 dead. Interestingly, only a third of those dead were in operations involving the army and police (either attacks on tribesmen, or clashes along the border itself). About 40 percent of the dead were the result of tribes fighting each other (usually pro-government groups against pro-Taliban ones.) The government arrested over 4,000 Islamic radical suspects last year.
http://www.strategypage.com/qnd/india/articles/20090126.aspx
