Women candidates defy election ban call in northwest Pakistan
Pakistan Times National News Desk

PESHAWAR: More than 300 women candidates have filed papers to stand in local elections in northwest Pakistan, defying a ban called by Islamic clerics in the region, activists said on Friday.

"Around 320 women filed their nomination papers in three districts where clerics had imposed a ban on their democratic and constitutional rights," said women's rights activist Aimal Khan.

"The figures are encouraging and give a new lease of life to the struggle for women's rights in this province," she said.

"We want women to be in mainstream politics. Democracy is incomplete without their participation in the democratic exercise."

Fundamentalist parties, joined by some secular groups, have opposed women's participation in next month's local government elections in the districts of Upper Dir, Lower Dir and Batagram.

They said that allowing women to contest seats would violate local cultural norms in the religious North West Frontier Province, a mountainous region on the Afghan border.

"We have imposed the ban collectively, getting other political parties on board, to preserve local culture and traditions," said local religious leader Qazi Fazlullah.

Women candidates and their supporters staged rallies last week when about 100 women protested in solidarity in the eastern Pakistan city of Lahore.

The North West Frontier Province is ruled by the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), or United Action Front, an alliance of six religio-political parties.

Dir is dominated by religious groups who in the past have also opposed the presence of nongovernmental organizations and foreign aid workers, prompting some aid agencies to pull out their staff about four years ago.

A women's rights activist, Zubeda Begum, and her 17-year-old daughter were murdered in Dir earlier this month.

Police said that they had arrested a man who said that a local religious official had incited him to murder the women for their "immoral" association with a non-governmental women's group, the Aurat Foundation.

The MMA's July-17 ban on women candidates prompted the federal government's intervention, and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz's women's affairs advisor, Ms Nilofar Bakhtiar visited the area to express her support for the women.

Pakistan's chief election commissioner has also observed that "barring women from taking part in the electoral process is a crime" and vowed that action would be taken against offenders.

Last month the MMA-dominated provincial legislature adopted a controversial bill introducing what liberal and secular groups in the province called "Taliban-style" rules on vice and virtue.●