High-profile gang-rape Victim to appeal acquittals in Pakistan's apex court
By Azka Jameel - Pakistan Times Staff Correspondent / PT Monitoring Desk

ISLAMABAD: The victim of a high-profile gang rape in Pakistan said Saturday she will file an appeal with the Supreme Court against Thursday's acquittal of five men who had earlier been sentenced to death for the attack.

"I hope that the Supreme Court will give me justice, otherwise I leave it to the God's court," Mukhtiar Mai, in her early 30s, told a press conference arranged by rights groups in Islamabad.

Mai was raped for more than an hour in the village of Meerwala in Punjab province in June 2002, as punishment for her brother's alleged affair with a woman of a powerful rival clan.

Mai, who went on to become an activist after the attack, said she and her family members were receiving death threats from her alleged attackers' clan.

Despite offers by some organisations for safe relocation to another country, she was determined to stay in Pakistan and fight her case.

Life is in danger

"My life is in danger, I am receiving death threats but I am more worried about my family. I and my family need government's protection," she said.

"Although I am facing threats from my attackers, I will not leave my village and country," she said.

Pakistani human rights groups have criticised the government and police after a court overturned the convictions of the five men.

They said authorities had failed to protect witnesses to the attack on Mai, meaning the high court in central Multan city had no choice but to uphold the appeals.

"The High Court's verdict has shocked me. I had no idea that the court will reverse the punishments," Mai told reporters.

Women in South Asia are often subject to brutal "honour punishments", from acid-burning to rape and murder, paying for the alleged crimes of relatives.

Recap

Mai's case shocked the country and sparked international outrage. Later the same year an anti-terrorist court in Punjab province sentenced six men to death by hanging and acquitted another eight defendants.

Mai's appeal against the acquittal of the eight was also rejected by court on Thursday.

After the rape, Mai embarked on a mission to improve girls' education in Pakistan, where 72 percent of women are illiterate, using her compensation money to set up her district's first ever school for girls.●