WASHINGTON (AFP) - British novelist Salman Rushdie said both India and Pakistan need to overcome a "culture" of rape that oppresses women.It's not a fringe when it officially runs the lives of hundreds of millions of people.
"The 'culture' of rape that exists in India and Pakistan arises from profound social anomalies, its origins lying in the unchanging harshness of a moral code based on the concepts of honor and shame," Rushdie wrote in an opinion column published Sunday in the New York Times.
"Thanks to that code's ruthlessness, raped women will go on hanging themselves in the woods and walking into rivers to drown themselves. It will take generations to change that. Meanwhile, the law must do what it can."
Women in Pakistan are often subjected to brutal crimes such as murder, rape and being burnt with acid.
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Rushdie also criticized India, saying the legal system should not recognize decisions by Muslim legal experts such as those from the powerful Islamist seminary Darul-Uloom that deny women their rights.
"At the risk of being called a communalist, I must agree that any country that claims to be a modern, secular democracy must secularize and unify its legal system, and take power over women's lives away, once and for all, from medievalist institutions like Darul-Uloom," Rushdie wrote.
Extending this "Sharia" law is the goal of the islamists, and it's no fantasy.
