Author: Warren Hoge
Publication: The Indian Express
Date: January 22, 2006
Introduction: I feel disappointed. I was not
going to say anything bad about Pakistan. I was just going to talk about my
work
Mukhtar Mai, the Pakistani woman whose defiant response to being gang-raped
by order of a tribal court brought her worldwide attention, was denied a chance
to speak at the United Nations on Friday after Pakistan protested that it
was the same day country's prime minister was visiting.
Mai had long been scheduled to make an appearance called "An interview
with Mukhtar Mai: The bravest woman on Earth" in the United Nations television
studios, sponsored, by, the office for nongovernmental organizations, the
Virtue Foundation and the Asian-American Network Against Abuse of Human Rights.
But on Thursday night the organizers were informed that the program would
have to be postponed because of Pakistan's objections.
Asked at a news conference why Pakistan had taken the action, visiting, Prime
Minister Shaukat Aziz said: "I have no idea. You have informed me and
so have some other people as I was walking in. I don't know how the place
functions." The Pakistani Mission did not return calls seeking comment.
In 2002, a village council sentenced Mukhtar Mai to be gang-raped for the
supposed misconduct of her brother. Pakistani women in such circumstances
often, commit suicide, but Mai instead successfully challenged her rapists
in court. She gave the compensation money she received to schools in her remote
district.
On a previous visit to New York in November, Mai, also known as Mukhtaran
Bibi, was hailed in a video tribute by Laura Bush at a Lincoln Center banquet
as a person who "proves that one woman really can change the world."
Shaukat Aziz is scheduled to meet President George W Bush in Washington next
week.
This is not the first, time that Pakistan's
government has interfered in Mai's plans. Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf
blocked her from taking a trip to the United States in June but had to relent
later on, when Glamour magazine honored Mai as its "Woman of the Year."
Asked why the United Nations bowed down to Pakistan's protests, Shashi Tharoor,
the under secretary general for communications, said he could not comment
on this specific case.
But he said: "As a general principle, indeed there are written instructions
guiding the holding of any event on United Nations premises in which we are
obliged to take into account views formally expressed by member states. This
is a building and an organization that belongs to the member states."
Recounting the 11th hour nature of the decision, Joseph Salim, the executive
director of the Virtue Foundation, a New York-based human rights " charity,
said, "Yesterday they suddenly told us that because this event was considered
by the Pakistan government as embarrassing to them, they were going to block
it."
An e-mail message from Meen Sur of the United Nations Department of Economic
and Social Affairs at 7:49 pm on Thursday informed the organizers that the
event had to be postponed until sometime after January 24. Neither she nor
Michele Fedoroff, the deputy head of the section, who had conveyed the, same
message in a telephone call, responded to messages seeking explanation.
Reacting to the incident, Mukhtar Mai said: "I feel disappointed. I was
not going to say anything bad about Pakistan. I was just going to talk about
my work and what people are doing."
NYT
