August 04, 2006	Friday	Rajab 8, 1427

Please Visit our Sponsor (Ads open in separate window).

ISLAMABAD, Aug 3: The People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP) on Thursday rejected the Code of Criminal Procedure (Amendment) Ordinance 2006 relating to women prisoners and termed it a “politically-motivated” law to target party chairperson Benazir Bhutto.

Speaking at a news conference at the Parliament House cafeteria after laying of the ordinance in the Senate, PPP senators Babar Awan, Enver Baig, Rukhsana Zuberi and Ratna Bhagwandas rejected the ordinance and asked the Supreme Court, bar associations and human rights organizations to take notice of the law which was not only against women, but had curtailed judiciary’s independence.

Babar Awan said the ordinance was promulgated on July 7, this year, and the government declared it as its big achievement claiming that it would provide relief to women prisoners who had been detained in various jails as they were not able to arrange bail for themselves.

Mr Awan declared it a “tailor-made targeted ordinance” and claimed that actually the ordinance was anti-women as it had snatched the right of bail from the women arrested or detained on charges of terrorism, murder and financial corruption. He said the ordinance stated that those women would be released who were arrested under the bailable offences. He said this provision was already there in the Section 496 of the CrPC, introduced by the Britishers. He said the government had actually introduced a new clause stating that those women arrested on charges of terrorism, murder and financial corruption would not be released on bail till six months.

The PPP senator said that through this section the government had actually snatched the right of bail from the women which was earlier available to them and now they would remain in prison for six months during which they could not even seek bail. He said every one knew that Benazir Bhutto was the only woman facing financial corruption charges and, therefore, he said the PPP believed that the ordinance had been promulgated only to victimise Ms Bhutto. He said the government was penalising all women of the country only to fulfil its political agenda of targeting Ms Bhutto.

Mr Awan said through the ordinance, the government had actually snatched the powers of the judiciary to grant bail to women and children. “The ordinance is a slap on the face of judiciary,” he said. He said the ordinance had been laid before the Senate at a time when eminent jurists from other countries were expected to be in the capital in a couple of days for a conference.

Mr Awan expressed the hope that the Supreme Court, human rights organizations and bar associations would raise their voice against this anti-women ordinance.

Senator Rukhsana Zuberi said that the government was not even providing the data of women who had been released from various jails of the country after promulgation of the ordinance.