Pakistan women's bill on ice until Musharraf returns

ISLAMABAD, Sep 18 (Reuters) Pakistan's government decided today to delay trying to pass a bill reforming laws to protect women until President Pervez Musharraf returns from the United States at the end of the month, senior officials said.

The bill is seen both as a barometer of Musharraf's commitment to his vision of ''enlightened moderation'', and a major battle in the long struggle between progressive and conservative forces to set the Muslim nation's future course.

Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, head of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML), said he was looking to delay submitting the bill for up to two weeks, although the final decision would be taken by the National Assembly.

''It could be delayed to evolve consensus. We are not backtracking,'' he told Geo News television channel.

The government had tried to duck a confrontation with the Islamist opposition over the bill to amend laws covering rape and adultery, but changes subsequently proposed by the religious parties proved unpalatable to PML's coalition partners.

Conservative sections of the PML had been fearful that it risked losing ground to the Islamists over the issue in elections due late next year, but according to a senior official the government had decided to take the risk.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said the bill that would be voted on, possibly in the first week of October, would be the original draft that placed the crime of rape under the civil criminal code and removed it from the parallel Islamic penal code, known as the Hudood Ordinances.

The official said the government also planned to introduce additional legislation to improve women's status.

INTENTIONS DOUBTED Political analysts, however, were sceptical of the government's intentions, as the Hudood laws served the purpose of dividing the more secular mainstream and religious opposition.

''I can't say this will never be amended or repealed, but I would say there is a lack of sincerity and it is being used for political reasons,'' Shafqat Mehmood, a Lahore-based political analyst and former senator, remarked.

The original draft, framed by a parliamentary select committee and presented in mid-August, had been praised by reformers and rights groups, who have long pressed for repeal of the Hudood laws introduced in 1979 by military dictator Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq.

Under the Hudood laws a rape victim might face prosecution for adultery if she cannot produce four male witnesses.

The Hudood laws have drawn widespread criticism both at home and abroad.

Musharraf was lambasted over Pakistan's poor record on women's rights when he visited the United States a year ago, and Islamist politicians have accused him of trying to force through reforms to placate Washington.

Lacking the numbers to block the bill, the Islamists had instead threatened to resign from parliament and the provincial assemblies in protest, raising fears of a political crisis in Baluchistan and North West Frontier -- the sensitive provinces neighbouring Afghanistan.

If Musharraf were to give in to the Islamists, his critics would interpret it as further evidence of a military-mullah alliance that they say has been operating in Pakistan since the general came to power in a coup seven years ago.

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