Socialist Hospital Wards

In the UK Telegraph, Jan Moir writes about the British National Health Service (NHS) practice of housing patients, including wounded military personnel from Iraq and Afghanistan, in mixed-sex hospital wards.

Servicemen and women who have killed and seen colleagues killed in Iraq and Afghanistan are having their wounds and injuries treated in mixed civilian wards -- those very same wards which, at times, seem barely able to cope with hip fractures and the occasional case of acute advanced dandruff, let alone traumatised troops fresh off the battlefield. Following a public outcry, the Prime Minister has agreed that it is important that our soldiers get specialist healthcare and hopes to introduce military-managed wards within the NHS. While we are all keeping our fingers crossed on that one, it seems that mixed-sex civilian wards of the type I was in show no sign of going away, even if Labour promised to close them down a decade ago. Perhaps they think we should all be grateful for receiving any healthcare at all.

We are, but being in a mixed ward is not like slipping on to a sun bed next to a bloke down by the hotel swimming pool. It's not like freshening your lipstick in the groovy, liberated unisex bathrooms that feature in glamorous American sit-coms. It is a hateful experience for all concerned, as both sexes are forced to cope with individual illness alongside an appalling lack of privacy. Just think about that dreadful, endless bed-ridden business of sluicing, hawking, coughing, impaired bodily functions and those tell-tale male thunderclap night-time noises, plus shoals of vomit, leaky urine bags, catheters, drips, mass incontinence, freight train snores, pyjamas that don't tie up properly in the front and general depression at being ill.

Just lovely. And coming to America if the leftists get their way.

Female Teacher - Lewd and Lascivious

(Ocala, Florida) A 28-year-old teacher's aide at Arthur G. Dozier School for Boys, Sheretha Lavone Paramore, was arrested last Friday by Chipley Police officers for engaging in sex with a 16-year-old boy. Paramore was charged with lewd and lascivious conduct, lewd and lascivious exhibition, and unlawful sex with a minor.

The alleged sex occurred between May and September. Police continue to investigate.

Defeated Mexican Candidate Launches Parallel Government

(Mexico, City) Rather than accept defeat in the national election, a politician may create a pretend presidency and a parallel government.

From El Paso Times:

Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador launched a parallel government Monday and prepared to swear himself in as Mexico's "legitimate" president, a ceremony the leftist hopes will keep alive protests to undermine the man who officials say defeated him at the polls.

The inauguration ceremony is the latest chapter in Lopez Obrador's unsuccessful battle for the presidency. He claims fraud and dirty campaign tactics were responsible for President-elect Felipe Calderon's narrow victory in the July 2 vote, and his parallel government could spend the next six years calling for street protests that have already dented the economy and prompted travel warnings from the U.S. Embassy.

While the red-green-and-white presidential sash to be draped across Lopez Obrador's shoulders Monday will lack legal recognition, he hopes to assume the moral leadership of millions of poor Mexicans.

Whether the millions of poor Mexicans follow Obrador is important for his goals but less so than having the Mexican Army and police follow him. Obrador has already stated that violence is in the toolbox.

"Nobody wants violence in our country, but there are people who give grounds for violence," Lopez Obrador said last week. "There are a lot of people who say that, after July 2, the path of electoral politics in no longer viable."

Heh. Just think, if Obrador is successful, the U.S. may soon share an imaginary border with a banana republic run by a socialist thug who likely has Fidel Castro, Hugo Chavez and Daniel Ortega on speed-dial.

Just lovely.

Iran Has Bugs

(Geneva, Switzerland) John C. Rood, head of the U.S. delegation to the sixth review conference of the Convention on Biological Weapons (BWC), said "Iran probably has germ warfare weapons, North Korea may have developed them and Syria could have carried out research into such banned weapons."

Just lovely.

Female Counselor Accused of Sex with Boy

(Pierce County, Washington) A mental health counselor with Pierce County family services, Wende Wertley, has been charged with engaging in sex with a 16-year-old client on multiple occasions and knowingly crossing professional boundaries. Investigators found that Wertley invited the boy to her home and allegedly had sex with him.

The Washington State Department of Health has suspended Wertley's mental health counselor license. Status of her criminal case is unknown.

Tip: Don

Woman Accused of Child Rape

(Tacoma, Washington) A 46-year-old woman, Maureen "Mo" Wear, faces trial on multiple charges of child rape for sexually abusing three children, one of which is a relative, over a period of years. She was arrested in August and since has been on suicide watch.

Wear's boyfriend, Lee William Giles Jr., a retired Tacoma police officer, is also charged in the systematic abuse of the three children. Giles is charged with 26 sex crimes and has pleaded not guilty. His trial date is not known.

Last week, at a hearing before Pierce County Superior Court Judge Thomas Felnagle, defense attorney Mary Kay High requested that Wear be allowed to attend her trial dressed in something other than a green, padded smock reserved for jail inmates on suicide watch. High also requested that television cameras be prohibited from videotaping Wear. Judge Felnagle denied both requests.

Wear remains jailed on $500,000 bond. Her trial is scheduled for January 23.

Tip: Don Morgenstern


[Update 11/27/07]

Giles and Wear plead guilty.

Measuring Ethics

You've got to be tickled by this headline from yesterday's NYTimes.

Democrats Split on How Far to Go With Ethics Law

Now, it seems to me that the ethical solution would be to go all the way. Ethics are like odors. You either stink or you don't.

Apparently, Democrats are split on ethics law because they disagree on how much stench to waft the public's way.

Aimee Josey Gets 7 Years for Rape

(Forsyth County, Georgia) Last March, 42-year-old mother, Aimee Melissa Josey, was indicted by a Forsyth County grand jury on charges of having sex with a 14-year-old boy she met on the Internet.

In September, Josey appeared in court and rejected a plea deal. Instead, a high-profile lawyer was retained to represent her with intentions of going to trial.

This past week, apparently on the advice of her new lawyer, Josey, now 43, decided to plead guilty to rape and molestation in accordance with a new, different plea deal.

From ForsythNews.com:

Judge Jeffrey S. Bagley sentenced Aimee Melissa Josey, 43, to seven years incarceration followed by 18 consecutive years of probation on two counts of statutory rape, two counts of enticing a child for indecent purposes and child molestation.

Josey must also register as a sexual offender, and have no contact with any person under the age of 18, including her own children, unless permitted by her probation officer.

She was barred from contacting the victim or his family indefinitely.

Before Bagley read Josey's sentence, he called her case one of the most disturbing crimes he'd ever encountered.

According to the prosecutor, Sandra Partridge, Josey would have received a lesser sentence had she accepted the first plea deal.

Tip: Don Morgenstern

Carrots for Syria

Syria is making noises about returning to full membership in the international community. The Democrat takeover of the U.S. Congress coupled with Tony Blair's recent statements about London-Damascus negotiations have energized the Syrians to start making demands. It's reasonable to assume that Iran is puppeteering.

From Asia Times Online:

After all, the Syrians cannot offer everything without getting anything in return. After the Iraq war, the Americans said there would no longer be carrots for the Syrians - only sticks. The Syrians repeatedly said, and continue to repeat the same line, that they will not police Iraq, nor cooperate on any Middle East-related issue, for no carrots.

And abandoning Iran, Hezbollah or Hamas for the Syrians is a red line. Also, the Syrians do not really trust the Americans. They want to reach some kind of formula whereby they can maintain relations with Tehran and Washington, with a free hand to work with Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine, similar to the perfect working relationship that the Syrians had with the Americans during the Bill Clinton era in the 1990s. [emphasis mine]

For some time it has been said that the US carrots should be jump-starting talks on the Golan Heights, returning to the Syrian-Israeli peace track, ending the Syrian Accountability Act, and re-welcoming Syria into the international community.

So, for a perfect working relationship with Syria, the U.S. needs to pony up some carrots without mentioning Iran, Hezbollah and Hamas while re-establishing a Clinton White House.

Syrian eagerness, with conditions, of course, for dialogue with the U.S. has been elevated by comments by Blair, Democrat Senator Joe Biden and others calling for meetings. Furthermore, the Syrians heard the statements of American Protestant Pastor Rick Warren on a recent visit.

He [Warren] met with Assad and the Grand Mufti of Syria, Sheikh Ahmad Hassoun, saying, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency, that "80% of the American people rejected what the US administration is doing in Iraq and considered the US policy in the Mideast as wrong." SANA added, "Pastor Warren expressed admiration of Syria and the co-existence he saw between Muslims and Christians, stressing that he will convey this image to his church and country."

Holy moly -- shades of Jimmy Carter. Pastor Warren, author of the bestselling The Purpose Driven Life, goes to a foreign country and trashes the U.S. Naturally, conservatives were outraged. However, when the media questioned Warren about his statements, he denied that he had said them. Okay, so who's telling a fib here? It's hard to tell without a recording. Both the Syrians and Pastor Warren have reputations for making creative, yet deniable, pronouncements.

And then there's the involvement of Reverend Joan Brown Campbell, head of a delegation of senior American clergy, who recently visited Syria. The Americans met with the Grand Mufti of the Republic Dr. Ahmad Badruddin Hassoun who explained that Islam is the religion of tolerance and "asserted that man was the most sacred creature on Earth." In response:

Members of the delegation expressed pleasure over the climate of tolerance they had seen in Syria, stressing that realities in the country were different from what the negative image given about Syria in the past.

It's assumed that the "sacred creatures" strapped with explosives were hidden from view. And there's more.

Members of the American delegation expressed admiration for what they had seen in Syria and for the example of coexistence and fraternity among Moslems and Christians, adding they were going to convey what they had seen in Syria to the American people.

In conclusion, it's logical for the Syrians to want new rounds of dialogue with the U.S. and it's also logical for them to expect the U.S. to roll over and offer carrots. From Syria's perspective every American who visited the country recently has enjoyed having smoke pumped up his/her ass so, obviously, it's time to talk to more Americans and get some carrots.

Woman Accused of Sex with 13-Year-Old

(Bentonville, Arkansas) A 36-year-old woman, Carolynn A. Hayes, has been charged with engaging in sex with a 13-year-old boy and buying alcohol and cigarettes for him and other youths. Hayes was arraigned this past week on charges of sexual assault and contributing to the delinquency of a minor before Benton County Senior Circuit Judge Tom Keith.

Hayes was booked into the Benton County Jail and released on $40,000 bond. A trial date hasn't yet been scheduled.


[Update 06/30/07]

Hayes pleads guilty and is sentenced to 12 years in prison.

Woman, 44, Guilty of Sex with Boy

(Easton, Pennsylvania) A 44-year-old former Northampton woman, Suzanne Wagner, pleaded guilty to engaging in a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old boy. The sex occurred in 2002 but adjudication of the case has been delayed due to court error. Wagner had previously pleaded guilty in January 2005 but the plea wasn't properly recorded in documentation of court proceedings.

Northampton County Court Judge Paula A. Roscioli will sentence Wagner on January 12 on one count of corruption of a minor. Wagner faces a possible five years in prison.

Tip: Don Morgenstern


[Update 02/27/07]

Wagner sentenced to jail.

Tickets Available for Dixie Chicks

(Glendale, Arizona) Listen up, Dixie Chicks fans! Plenty of seats are available for tomorrow night's concert in Glendale. It's estimated that less than half of the seats in the 19,000-capacity Jobing.com Arena will be sold.

It's beyond my ability to comprehend the Dixie Chicks. Any enterprise that sells to the public should prudently try to maximize sales volume and profit. Stupidly, the Dixie Chicks business plan is to piss off half of their potential customer base and guarantee shrinkage of sales. It's nuts. And arrogant.

The Interested-Participant market analysis team continues to rate Dixie Chicks stock as "SELL."

Fondling Teacher Gets Year in Jail

(Patterson, New Jersey) In this enduring case, dating back to at least 2003, 35-year-old 7th-grade teacher Jodi Marie Thorp, has finally been sentenced for having sex with a male student. Thorp, a married mother of three, received a year in jail for fondling a 14-year-old student.

There has been considerable legal wrangling on the case over the past 3 1/2 years and, last August, Thorp agreed to plead guilty to a significantly reduced charge of endangering the welfare of a child in accordance with a deal. In return, serious charges of sexual assault and witness tampering were dropped. The plea deal given Thorp is the lightest sentence ever extended by the Morris County prosecutor.

Judge Salem V. Ahto also sentenced Thorp to three years probation and ordered her to register as a sex offender under Megan's Law and to surrender her teaching license. Additionally, Thorp will be subjected to lifetime community supervision.

My prediction that Thorp would receive no jail and just probation was obviously wrong. However, the "lightest sentence ever" indicates that my thinking was correct. The prosecution dropped much more serious charges for her guilty plea.

Women just seem to deserve an extra measure of leniency when sentenced for sex crimes. I'm fairly certain that a man committing the exact same crimes would have been rewarded with at least a ten-year prison sentence.

Teacher Reveals Hatred in Assignment to Students

This stuff makes me sick. God only knows how many Muslims are living in the U.S. with a visceral hatred of all things American.

(Smithfield, North Carolina) Khalid Chahhou, a Spanish teacher at Smithfield-Selma Senior High School, gave his students a translation assignment which included words and phrases demonstrating strong negative feelings toward America. Specifically, the translated worksheet displayed "destroy America" and "Allah help destroy this body of evil making humanity miserable."

Students and parents were shocked. School officials subsequently talked to Chahhou and he resigned. Later, via telephone, Chahhou said he was mad about a news report.

Notably, Chahhou also teaches Arabic at an Islamic school. Small wonder.

More on the story at The Jawa Report.

LA Times Prints Enemy Propaganda?

Information has been received from a credible source suggesting that the Los Angeles Times is reporting news from Iraq by copying, near verbatim, the content of insurgent terrorist propaganda. The source is a U.S. Army soldier who mailed a personal letter to his family describing a military engagement in Ramadi which largely contradicts the content of the LATimes story. Either the soldier's personal account or the LATimes news report is fictionalized. I'll trust the readers to decide.

From LATimes.com:

Iraqi residents say U.S. airstrike kills 30

Victims include women and children, witnesses in Ramadi say. The military has no immediate comment.

By Solomon Moore, Times Staff Writer
November 15, 2006

BAGHDAD -- A U.S. airstrike in the restive town of Ramadi killed at least 30 people, including women and children, witnesses said Tuesday.

The aerial attack, which took place late Monday, brought the number of violent deaths reported in Iraq on Tuesday to at least 91, according to military sources and witnesses.

The last statement is misleading. As indicated later in the report, military sources had no comment on any U.S. airstrike.

U.S. military officials had no immediate comment on an airstrike in Ramadi. The military released a statement announcing that American troops in Ramadi killed 11 alleged insurgents in a series of attacks that appeared to be unrelated to an airstrike.

A Times correspondent in Ramadi said at least 15 homes were pulverized by aerial bombardment and families could be seen digging through the ruins with shovels and bare hands. Other families attempted to leave Ramadi on foot or gathered at the city hospital, where a passionate crowd called out "Allahu akbar!" or God is great, in unison.

The correspondent describes a terrible attack resulting in significant civilian casualties. If one were to rely on the Times report, one would be led to believe that the U.S. military is blindly bombing the city without regard for innocent human life. I question the Times report since the American military is quite sensitive about avoiding collateral damage. Additionally, the Times report should be questioned after considering the soldier's letter which explains the events he witnessed that day.

The article [above] below is an example of why you simply cannot believe most media reports coming out of Iraq. The LA Time reporter, Solomon Moore, is not in Ramadi. He relies on an Iraqi stringer here who has ties to insurgents. In this article, Moore repeats almost verbatim, insurgent propaganda we have intercepted. The fighting in question occurred in my battle space within Ramadi and I was personally and intimately involved.

There were no air strikes anywhere in Ramadi on the day in question. Through two different means, we acquired a group off AIF [anti-Iraq Forces - ed.] emplacing a large IED on a neighborhood street. After I was sure they were enemy, I ordered one of my tanks to engage. Its cannon fire killed the enemy and set off the IED. Shortly afterwards, one of my Bradley crews engaged and killed two more AIF emplacing an IED on a nearby street.

In both cases, we continued to observe the area and the locals left the dead lying in the street; this is a sure sign that they are AIF because the Iraqis normally pick up dead civilians in the street quickly. Later that night, I had a route clearance team move through the area. We found the bodies and removed multiple hand grenades off one of them. During that same operation, one of Bradleys escorting the route clearance team was attacked by an IED. The IED set the Bradley on fire and wounded the three Soldiers aboard. One of those brave men now clings to life with burns over 93% of his body.

We established a security perimeter around the burning vehicle and over-watched it until it burned out and we were able recover the hulk. While over-watching the burning vehicle, we had multiple tank main gun and machine gun engagements against AIF who were desperately trying to steal ammunition from the vehicle (a fool's errand if ever there was one) or emplace additional IEDs to attack the recovery mission they knew would follow. No houses were destroyed and only one courtyard wall was damaged.

Every target engaged was well within what our restrictive rules of engagement authorize. I am disgusted by the editorial slant of this article, by what passes from journalistic integrity at the LA Times, and by their complicity with our mortal enemies. My Soldiers fight with great precision and skill on a very difficult urban battlefield. The LA Times dishonors them and give aid and comfort to my enemies. (sic all)

The soldier's identity is being withheld and rightly so. He wrote a personal letter to his family to assuage the apprehension created by the Times report. There's nothing official about his letter and, as such, one might be persuaded to dismiss it. In that case, however, one would also have to believe that a soldier's personal letter is part of a military disinformation conspiracy or that the soldier lies to his family.

On the other hand, the MSM has a reputation of being lazy about reporting from the battlefield with the current joke being told that most copy is composed in the bar of a four-star hotel many miles from any action. The LATimes story was likely polished in Los Angeles based on a communique from an Iraqi stringer with questionable loyalties.

Believe what you want. I tend to trust U.S. soldiers.

A salute to Brian Duffy for catching this story.

Nearly 1,000 Hispanic Workers Walk Off Job

(Tar Heel, North Carolina) Twenty percent of the workforce at a Smithfield Foods Inc. hog slaughtering plant walked off the job in protest of the firing of about 75 workers who provided false identification documents. The Smithfield plant employs 5,000 people and is considered the world's largest hog processing facility.

From KansasCity.com:

About 300 workers were protesting this morning outside the plant in Tar Heel, N.C., said Libby Manly, a representative of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, which helped organize the protest and has been trying for years to form a union at the plant.

So, the company complies with the law and fires several dozen likely illegal aliens and the union organizes a protest. Are we to assume that the union wants the company to break the law?

Smithfield spokesman Dennis Pittman said the company was only complying with a request from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to gather the names, Social Security numbers, dates of birth and gender of workers at the plant. About 600 workers were found to have unverifiable information.

Frankly, I'm at a loss to understand what the union is trying to accomplish by organizing the Hispanics to protest.

From HeraldSun.com:

"This walkout -- which apparently was instigated by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union -- is totally unjustified," Pittman said. "If Smithfield were to do what the union is calling for, we would be breaking federal law by knowingly employing undocumented workers. The union should stop trying to pressure Smithfield to break the law."

I wonder whether a national labor relations guideline covers the Smithfield circumstance. If so, it's probably being violated. Unions shouldn't be encouraging companies to break the law.

Teacher Sued by Student

(Conneaut, Ohio) A former art teacher at Rowe Junior High School, Nancy Hedrick (AKA Nancy Seacrist), faces a civil lawsuit filed by a 17-year-old Parma boy and his mother. The lawsuit names the Conneaut Board of Education as a co-defendant and seeks $450,000 in compensatory and punitive damages resulting from sexual contact between Hedrick/Seacrist and the boy four years ago. The sexual contact is alleged to have occurred on and off school property.

According to the lawsuit, the 17-year-old suffers mental and emotional distress, humiliation and medical expenses. Future medical expenses are anticipated.

Interestingly, Conneaut Police were notified about the alleged sexual contact in 2003. Investigators failed to file criminal charges.

A jury trial before Ashtabula County Common Pleas Court Judge Alfred Mackey is scheduled for February 2007 but the case may be settled before then.

Tip: Don Morgenstern

ACLU Wins Lottery

Albeit figurative, I believe the title is appropriate. Being assured that a Democrat-controlled Congress will protect their backs, the hammer and sickle cells of the ACLU are champagne happy about the psychological, and soon to be tangible, boost to their "civil liberties" agenda.

Yes, it's balloons and confetti time at the American Civil Liberties Union. New ACLU shills on the Supreme Court are no longer hopes, they're doable. Goodbye to all those egregious wire-tappings, surveillances and torturing of imaginary terrorist boogie-men. Those abuses will be outed as the sham Republican power-grabs they are. And no longer will religious prisoners at Gitmo and workers from Latin America be denied their rights under the Constitution. The harassment and violations of civil liberties must stop!

Meanwhile, drip by drip, America must be relentlessly cajoled and prodded toward enjoying the full wave of utopian reality and embrace Islam, Wicca, Santeria, homosexuality and who knows what else while harmful cults of Christianity and Judaism are deservedly shooed from prominence.

Above all and as a prerequisite to realizing the dreams of Marx, Engels, Castro, and Chavez, the 2nd Amendment to the Constitution requires an inspired ACLU interpretation to erase the nonsensical thought that individual citizens may own firearms. This action is paramount since the civil liberties of all humanity are threatened when people are allowed to possess guns.

So, with a Democrat Congress backstopping and cheerleading the ACLU, expect reinvigorated efforts, under the heading of civil liberties, to use the pick-a-definition concepts of social justice, economic justice and racial justice to convince the workers of the world America to support a utopian future for those who are more equal everyone.

Okay, enough sarcasm.

I'm strongly opposed to most of what the ACLU does but none more than its attempts to restrict gun ownership by Americans.

From ACLU.org:

The question therefore is not whether to restrict arms ownership, but how much to restrict it. If that is a question left open by the Constitution, then it is a question for Congress to decide.

Given its published policy, expect the ACLU, along with Congress, to attempt more restrictions. I believe the elite media will soon be on board also. Look for various and assorted 'child shoots self with daddy's gun' stories, hunting accident stories, unlicensed gun ownership stories, 'gun in school' stories, and dangerously designed gun stories to be inked for headline prominence by the MSM from now on. Actual problems with firearms won't be different from one, five, ten or 20 years ago, but the media will try to convince the public otherwise.

Forgive the rant. I'll put partial blame on the practice of chasing coffee with Red Bull. Don't try this at home, kids. Too many misspellings which have to be corrected. For a more erudite and less frivolous treatment of the subject, check out Jay's post at STACLU.

This has been a production of Stop The ACLU Blogburst. If you would like to join, please email Jay@stoptheaclu.com or GribbitR@gmail.com. You will be added to the mailing list and blogroll. Over 200 blogs already on-board.

Craigslist Used for Prostitution

(Seattle, Washington) This news probably surprises very few people but it may be the first time that police have collected significant evidence that Craigslist facilitates prostitution.

Via an elaborate prostitution sting operation, Seattle detectives arrested seven women and a 16-year-old girl who advertised as escorts but expected payment for sexual services. On a later occasion, police cruised Craigslist and nabbed 14 more women on suspicion of prostitution.

Men answering Craigslist posts in the "erotic services" category came in droves. About 70 were arrested for suspicion of patronizing a prostitute and police found that the men were "a complete subculture." They all knew each other and called themselves "hobbyists," communicating via Craigslist online review boards. Coming from a variety of backgrounds, those arrested included "bank presidents, state employees, business owners, construction workers, physicians and surgeons."

Founder Craig Newmark hinted that he would take legal action if the Craigslist name was used improperly, referring to the local online review boards where men communicate about illegal sex.

However, with respect to the larger problem of Craigslist being used for prostitution, nothing will likely be done. The police don't have the resources to chase down every prostitute and customer doing business through Craigslist and it seems unachievable to hold Craigslist editors responsible for the legality of every site posting.

It seems the only way to control the Craigslist prostitution problem is to conduct periodic sting operations, as was done, and hope for a chill in the marketplace.

Pakistan Passes Women's Protection Law

(Islamabad, Pakistan) Good news! Unfortunately, it's a mere baby step towards the goal of equal rights for women.

From PakTribune.com:

Congratulating the whole nation over approval of Women Protection Bill 2006 by the Parliament, President General Pervez Musharraf Wednesday vowed to bring an end to all injustice against women and weaker segments of the society.

The most notable changes concern the crime of rape. Previous to the Women Protection Bill 2006, a woman who claimed she was raped but didn't produce the required four witnesses was put in jail.

Regarding the rape, the president said the trouble with it was that if a woman is raped firstly she is being prosecuted she goes to the police station crying she is asked to bring four witnesses otherwise she is imprisoned and she becomes victim of double injustice. This was a dual injustice with out women. We have amended the Zina Bil Jabr (Rape) we put it in PPC and from now on if a woman is raped and if she had an evidence or she lacks it, only the rapist will be adjudged. There will be no bar for producing four witness and raped woman will not be put behind bars.

So, in a nutshell, a woman can claim she was raped, even when there were no witnesses, and she won't be jailed. Sounds reasonable and simple yet, among the general Pakistani public, it's an earthshaking change. Families, police, judges, courts and tribal leaders will all have to recognize and comply with the change. I suspect that there will be strong reluctance among various segments to enforce the new rape law. The Musharraf government may need to force compliance.

Nonetheless, the Women Protection Bill 2006 should be considered a major step forward. There remains, however, much more work to be done before true equality between the sexes is achieved.

Companion post at The Jawa Report.