Rapists have rights — in Pakistan

Know also that your right to rape is suppor­ted by our legal and judici­al system.

Mubashir Lucman hates rape victims. He can’t stand them, exhausted as he is by their constant suffering and seeking of justice and maligning of innocent rapists. It just makes him sick to his stomach. If you are a rape victim and you are on Facebook, he will never ‘like’ anything you say. Unless you say that you like rapists. Then he will click the ‘like’ button with such force that the mouse will explode under the power of his thumb, spewing shrapnel everywhere and risking him getting shards of hard plastic in his eyes. These are the sacrifices Mubashir Lucman makes for you. It is for the sake of every maligned rapist out there that Mubashir Lucman risks high ratings, the endorsement of a TV channel that doesn’t believe in content-oversight and the benefit of advertisers, who proudly proclaims its support of his pro-rapist message, all so he can bravely criticise a gang rape victim.

Mubashir Lucman heroically risks the ire of anti-rape extremists by asking Mukhtaran Mai whether she feels any pity for the men who raped her and paraded her naked down the streets. He boldly draws a line in the sand with his words, clearly marking out the borders to a safe haven for rapists. Such is the passion of Mubashir Lucman.

Know also that your right to free rape is supported by our legal and judicial system. The same courts that can be relied upon to completely unlearn the meaning of the word ‘evidence’ in every blasphemy case that happens across their doorstep will look so closely at every detail of a rape case that their vision will get blurred. To ensure that all rapists are given a trial that is freer and fairer than anything the raped can hope for, the courts will be stocked to the misogynistic rafters with judges that believe the raped are just feeling unfairly rejected by their honourable rapists and that any mental distress felt, particularly after a gang rape, by the ‘victim’ should be ignored. If you were raped, it seems that certain judges are saying that you are then probably exaggerating, lying or simply asking for it. Either way, you will find no shelter in the system that ostensibly seeks to dispense justice in this country. ‘Caveat Raped’ as the Latin saying never went. These gavels were made for crushing your hopes of a Pakistan in which the rapist would fear reprisal.

Rapists can also continue committing their acts of rape knowing that there is no political party that will ever try to curtail their rights. The same flocks of ideologically-charged protesters who will burn your friend’s restaurant if you state an asinine opinion, or threaten to block the streets if the drones your government and army gave permission to fly over your territory continue to fly over your territory, will not lift a single placard in defence of someone gang-raped. Their love for female honour and virtue, it seems, is only enough to focus on a single woman at a time and that time is entirely taken up by the woman your intelligence agency handed over to America. Not until that matter is resolved, the war on terror is ended, petrol prices are lowered and the several thousand other, far more important things that crop up on a near hourly basis are attended to, can they even consider freeing up their schedule enough to notice those who have been raped.

As for the religious organisations, just remember that these groups hold a woman’s honour as an utmost priority until that honour is violated against her will. It somehow stops being worth the time after that.

So if you are a rapist, go forth and rape with impunity. Letting you is the least we could do.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 28^th, 2011.

Correction: April 28, 2011

This article has been edited from the version that appeared in the print edition on April 28, 2011.