The United Nations estimates 50% of Bangladeshi women suffer from domestic violence, rape, beatings, acid attacks and even death due to the country's entrenched patriarchal system. The Supreme Court outlawed fatwas 10 years ago but human right monitors have documented over 500 cases in the past decade of women being punished through religious rulings.
On January 31, 2010, Hena Akhter was dealt the punishment handed down by the iman from the local mosque. The ordered fatwa or religious ruling was 101 lashes delivered swiftly and deliberately in public. Hena dropped after 70 and was taken to the hospital where she died a week later. What was her crime? At the young tender age of only 14 Hena was stalked, gagged, raped and beat by her father’s nephew three times her age. Then dragged back to his house by his wife who caught him and beat and trampled on the floor.
The next day the village elders met at Mahbub Khan’s, the nephew, house and the fatwa was pronounced: her punishment was 101 lashes under Islamc law and his 201. He managed to escape after the first few lashes. Darbesh Khan and Aklima Begum watched as required by law their youngest child of five lashed, and her skin torn till she fell to the ground unconscious. Hena’s last words to her mother were that she was innocent.
Sultana Kamai, head of Ain O Shalish Kandro stated that the government needs to enact a specific law to deal with such perpetrators responsible for extrajudicial penalty in the name of Islam. The first autopsy said she committed suicide, but later the ugly details of the case surfaced. Public outraged sparked by the autopsy prompted the high court to exhume her body for a second autopsy. It revealed death from internal bleeding. Police are now investigating and have arrested several people including Mahbub Khan.
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/03/29/bangladesh.lashing.death/?hpt=C2
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