Pakistani PM says new laws on rape will be passed

ISLAMABAD, Sep 19 (Reuters) Pakistan's government will submit a bill, fiercely opposed by Islamist parties, to reform laws on rape and adultery in the next parliamentary session, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz said today.

Seeking to remove doubts about his government's commitment a day after the parliamentary session was suspended following weeks of toing and froing over the Women's Protection Bill, Aziz said the bill would be sent in its original form.

''Our commitment is to get the Women's Protection Bill passed by the parliament without any change,'' Aziz, an urbane ex-Citibank executive, told a news conference.

He said the bill would be submitted in the next session, which officials said would be convened once President Pervez Musharraf returns from a visit to the United States at the end of the month.

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.

The original draft, framed by a parliamentary select committee and presented in mid-August, had been praised by reformers and rights groups.

It envisaged putting the crime of rape under the civil penal system and removing it from the Islamic penal code, known as the Hudood Ordinances.

Under the Hudood laws, introduced in 1979 by military dictator Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq, a rape victim might face prosecution for adultery if she cannot produce four male witnesses.

Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain, head of the ruling Pakistan Muslim League (PML), told the news conference that some recommendations to further improve the status of women under the law could be added during the second reading of the bill.

The government has tried to avoid a confrontation with the Islamists, who have threatened to resign from parliament and the provincial assemblies in protest as they lack sufficient numbers to block the bill.

Aside from worries that the Islamists could further destabilise Baluchistan and North West Frontier, the two provinces bordering Afghanistan, conservatives in the PML feared the issue could lose them votes in elections due next year.

At one point the PML almost caved in to the country's political mullahs by having rape included in both of Pakistan's parallel penal systems, until a more secular-minded coalition partner nixed any idea of compromising.

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.

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