Pakistani women’s organizations Friday condemned a court for acquitting five men charged with gang rape. A sessions court in the southern Pakistani city of Multan acquitted the five accused men Wednesday. “It is shocking and unbelievable,” said Farzana Bari, director of the Center for Excellence in Gender Studies at Islamabad’s Quaid-e-Azam University. Bari said a meeting of leading Pakistani women groups said the verdict should be overturned. A Pakistani tribal council allegedly ordered the rape of Mukhtaraan Bibi in February 2002 as punishment for a rape falsely attributed to her 12-year-old brother. The boy later said the accusation was made to cover up a sexual assault against him by men from the same clan that raped his sister. Six men were convicted of Bibi’s rape, five of whom have now been set free. Bibi, 30, wept bitterly as the Multan sessions announced the acquittal verdict. “I have been wronged. I will ask my lawyer to challenge this verdict,” she said. © Copyright 2005 by United Press International

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