WASHINGTON, Oct 20: The People’s Party is cooperating with the government on the women’s bill and is not engaged in any talks for power sharing, says senior party leader Aitzaz Ahsan.

“All these talks about the government-PPP deal are incorrect,” the former interior minister told a gathering in Washington. “It is in the government’s interest to show that a deal is being negotiated.”

The women’s bill, he said, was a different issue. He explained that under the laws promulgated by the Zia regime, a rape victim suffers twice: first when she is raped and again when she fails to produce evidence that it was a rape and not consensual sex.

He said the discriminatory provisions of ‘the Zia laws’ are exacerbated by their discriminatory application by the police and judiciary.

The vast majority of such cases are not supported by the evidence and should not have been prosecuted, he said.

He recalled that in 1983, an eighteen-year-old blind girl, Safia Bibi, became pregnant as a result of rape. Her pregnancy was cited by the prosecution as proof that she had engaged in extra-marital sex, and her assailant was acquitted due to “want of evidence”. In response to national and international protests, Safia Bibi was acquitted on appeal.

In 1983, fifteen-year-old Jehan Mina became pregnant after allegedly being raped by her uncle and his son. When she filed a complaint with the police, she was charged with fornication.

In sentencing her, the court stated that “the basis of conviction is her unexplained pregnancy coupled with the fact that she is not a married girl.”

“We believe that hundreds of innocent women will come out of jail if these laws are changed,” he said. Mr Ahsan, a prominent lawyer who represented several rape victims in the courts, including Mukhtaran Mai, said that hundreds of rape cases go unreported because the victims fear that instead of getting justice, they would face further victimisation.

“If the Zia laws are changed, these cases will be registered and the rapists punished. This is why we are cooperating with the government on the women’s bill but that is not a deal.”

Mr Ahsan said that his party would never accept any proposal that calls for allowing President Musharraf to continue as a military ruler.

He said that when the MMA came under intense pressure to resign from the Balochistan government, they started saying that the PPP should resign from the assemblies first.

Mr Ahsan said opposition parties did not ask the MMA to resign from the assemblies or even to end their rule in the NWFP where they are in a majority. “We simply asked them to quit a government they are sharing with the Musharraf regime.”