While many women quietly suffer an ill fate at the hands of such tribal decisions, and sometimes committ suicide from the ‘shame’, Mukhtaran Mai fought back. Her prepetrators of the crime were tried in the anti-terrorism courts and death sentences were handed down to the guilty. Since then, the judicial process has taken the case back and forth and most recently the Supreme Court has decided in her favor.
Mukhataran Mai’s presence on the web, in the form of a blog, is a wonderful reminder of how digital access can open doors for a better communication between people lwho otherwise may never meet each other. Mukhataran’s audience is global, and while most support her cause, not all people agree with the path she has chosen; some may not even sympathize with her. But at least a healthy discussion is happening where a village woman can be a party to share her thoughts and opinions. Even about the naysayers, she says:
WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY BILL BURTON HOLDS WHITE HOUSE NEWS BRIEFING ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE EN ROUTE TO ILLINOIS
Political Transcript Wire April 28, 2010 WHITE HOUSE NEWS BRIEFING ABOARD AIR FORCE ONE EN ROUTE TO ILLINOIS, AS RELEASED BY THE WHITE HOUSE APRIL 28, 2010 SPEAKER: WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY BILL BURTON [*] BURTON: Good morning. Thank you for joining us. We’re going to have some long drives today, but we’ll see some beautiful parts of the country. So, at 12:20 p.m., the President is going to tour the facility at POET Biorefining. The remarks will be about 1:00 p.m. It’s in Macon, Missouri. He’ll talk to workers about what they’re experiencing during these tough economic times and share ideas for rebuilding our economy in the long term. Secretary Vilsack is, again, along with us for the day. He’ll be with us all the way to the White House later on.
At that event we expect all the statewide officials and the mayor of Macon, Doug Bagley; the general manager of POET Biorefining, Steve Burnett, will lead the tour.
We will then — sorry, just a little more on POET. In Macon they produced their first ethanol in May of 2000, starting with an annual production capacity of 15 million gallons. Three years later the plant expanded its capacity to 46 million gallons per year and added the production of Dakota Gold Distillers Grains and carbon dioxide. The Macon facility was the first ethanol plant in the state of Missouri and currently employs 45 people. website act question of the day
The plant purchases 16 million bushels of corn from 650 local farmers, which annually produces, like I said, 46 million gallons of ethanol, which primarily goes to St. Louis and Palmyra, Missouri, 140,000 tons of high-protein animal feed called Dakota Gold Distillers Grains that’s sold to area farmers, and 94,000 tons of CO2, which is sold to soft-drink companies, food processors, water treatment facilities, to name a few. They also have really cool commercials at POET.
He’ll later have a kitchen table-type discussion with a local farm family to discuss their operation.
At 4:00 p.m., we’ll be in Quincy, at the Oakley Lindsay Civic Center. You guys might remember in 2008 this was the place where the President went and sandbagged in preparation for the floods. And later he’ll — and that’s where he’ll deliver remarks on Wall Street reform.
There will be about 2,000 folks in attendance; 70 percent of the tickets were distributed Tuesday on a first come, first serve basis; the other 30 percent, as per normal, distributed by the White House to local groups and elected officials.
And with that, I’ll take your questions.
QUESTION: Can you preview the remarks in Quincy this afternoon, at least a little bit?
BURTON: Sure. Well, the President is going to talk about the fact that it doesn’t take a degree from the Harvard School of Economics to understand that on Wall Street things are getting back to normal. But if you look around Main Street in rural America, a lot of the places where we’ve been, we’re a far place from a normal that should be acceptable to anyone. And if you look at the kind of economic crisis that nearly brought our economy to its knees with the collapse of financial firms and the bailouts that were required, the President firmly believes and will make the case that we need real reforms in place to prevent those sorts of catastrophes from happening again.
So he’ll talk about the need for Wall Street reform, what it means to Main Street in rural America, and the need to do it right now.
There’s been a lot of talk about this issue for a long time, and people on both sides are saying that they want to get something done. But it’s time to act.
QUESTION: Is he getting impatient?
BURTON: I’m sorry?
QUESTION: Is he getting impatient?
BURTON: The President has been impatient on this issue for a very long time. We need action in the Senate to move this forward.
QUESTION: Now that we’re facing a third vote in the Senate, does he have any indication from lawmakers that that vote is going to go any different than the previous two on getting the debate started?
BURTON: As we took off the conversations were still happening with lawmakers on the Hill, and I don’t have any further update for you, but that’s an ongoing process.
QUESTION: Has he had conversations with lawmakers?
BURTON: None that I know of.
QUESTION: So it’s people from the administration who have been having conversations with lawmakers.
BURTON: That’s right.
QUESTION: Is there any reason Secretary Vilsack didn’t speak at any of the events yesterday? He was governor of Iowa; he seems to be very popular in the state.
BURTON: No particular reason. But he’s — oh, he did actually speak at the pre-programs for some of the events yesterday.
QUESTION: Oh, he did? Okay.
BURTON: Yes.
QUESTION: Bill, why didn’t the President call out Charles Grassley, since he’s talking about financial regulation and he was in Iowa yesterday and he voted against the bill?
BURTON: There’s always a lot of things that the President can say or not say, but I’m not going to get into the, like, ins and outs of every non-utterance the President doesn’t make.
QUESTION: But we were in Iowa.
BURTON: We were in Iowa, and it is a fine state. (Laughter.) QUESTION: Do you have any reaction to the Greek debt crisis, which seems to be spreading, and was hitting markets pretty hard yesterday?
BURTON: This is something that is of great concern to the President. We’re monitoring it very closely. And officials from Treasury and other appropriate agencies are in close contact with folks in Europe about the issue.
QUESTION: Is there something to be said about the timing of this clean energy push while the Gulf of Mexico is being set on fire, there was this mine disaster related to coal?
BURTON: We’ve been having a — we’ve been in the midst of real energy problems for a very long time. Our dependence on foreign oil is too much. The amount of emissions that we put out of our vehicles and factories is too high. And this is an issue that the President has been committed to making progress on. actquestionofthedaynow.com act question of the day
Like I said yesterday, on the substance, there is bipartisan agreement on what we need to do to move forward to help to decrease our dependence on foreign oil, help to increase our production of clean energies here. And basically we’re just in the midst of a process question. And the President is confident that given the fact that lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agree on what we need to do to move forward, that we’re going to be able to make some very important progress on this issue.
QUESTION: What about the oil rigs off the — in the Gulf of Mexico? Is that going to affect your offshore drilling policy at all? Is that coming into consideration or play?
BURTON: Well, there’s a joint investigation currently under way that multiple agencies across the executive branch are participating in. The President is very closely monitoring the situation. People at the highest levels of the administration have been meeting with officials at BP to discuss not just the cleanup there but what happened there.
We take very seriously the concerns that people have and the issue that’s — issues that are underway today in the cleanup and the fire. But the President is eagerly anticipating the outcome of the joint investigation.
QUESTION: But do you think that he’ll continue the push for offshore drilling?
BURTON: Well, I’m not going to get in front of what the investigation produces.
QUESTION: Any reaction to the Goldman testimony yesterday?
BURTON: I’m not going to comment on what is ultimately an ongoing enforcement action on the SEC. But like I said earlier, there are real problems on Wall Street. There are — there’s a need to rein in some of the practices that got us into this mess. There’s a need for more transparency and there’s a need to protect consumers.
The President is committed to making sure that we make progress and get Wall Street reform done.
QUESTION: Thank you.
QUESTION: Have you seen “Barack the Barbarian”?
BURTON: I have seen that comic book. I liked it because it had few words and lots of pictures — made it easy to understand. (Laughter.) But when you come to Iowa you see all sorts of fun things, and it’s nice to see the manifestation of somebody’s creative energy in the President slaying a large elephant.
QUESTION: Are you referring to Sarah the Red?
BURTON: No, the big elephant.
QUESTION: The actual elephant. (Laughter.) QUESTION: Thank you.
BURTON: All right, thanks.
END 2009 CQ Transcriptions, LLC
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Mukhtaran Mai is a name familiar to most Pakistanis. In 2002, she was raped by 4 men from a rival tribe as per the decision of local elders in a tribal jirga. The story of the jirga decision is a fascinating tale itself in how our judicial and extra-judicial systems sometimes work in rural Pakistan.
Saadia it’s a shame that his “dictatorship” is not working afterall. I wonder what would have happened if he actually was a dictator?
[quote comment="2502"]Its sad to that Pakistan rape reform has been failed after President Musharraf’s govt. caved in to religious conservatives by dropping its plans to reform rape laws. Its really disgusting that he had to do this only because of some illiterate Mullahs and MNAs pressure….What a shame!!![/quote]
I am glad to read this and also the comments. All of you Pakistanis are correct in being proud of her courage. As a woman, I am too.
Its sad to that Pakistan rape reform has been failed after President Musharraf’s govt. caved in to religious conservatives by dropping its plans to reform rape laws. Its really disgusting that he had to do this only because of some illiterate Mullahs and MNAs pressure….What a shame!!!
Good point, Mast Qalandar.
Why are our mosques silent on this issue? Do they think such issues should not be discussed, or at all contemplated upon? What are they afraid of, when their pulpits are ideal for teaching and preaching civility and justice? Those of us who raise concern on such issues from outside Pakistan are often chastened for washing our dirty laundry in public. If there was enough wasing going on inside, there would be less need to do it outside as well.
Passion: I agree with most of what you say except your proposed punishment of burying the perpetrators upto their necks and stoning them to death. Brutality does not improve anything. It only begets more brutality.
If we have a good justice system no one would feel the need take their grievances to the world.
Did you notice one thing? Throughout the MM episode not even a squeak was heard from the country’s loudest loudspeakers!!!
Dear Mast Qalandar
The society and the institutions of country should be on the side of the victim. Islam says a women needs 4 witnesses for rape and here the whole village watches the rape and no one comes out and say YES I SAW THE RAPE why? just because our system is weak and injust. Police is corrupt and why blame the police when the politicians are corrupt then the whole system gets corrupt.we are not living in 18th century but this is 21st century and what we need to do is as a nation condemn these acts and improve the system. A woman should not have to wait DAYS to report a crime like that if the system is just and fast. We have all the money in the world to spend on everything else but on the improvement of system. Why is the police in Pakistan so behind in everything. How come they are not being modernized with labs and weapons and protection. We blame the police but what do you expect from somone one who stand on their feet all day and get merely 5000 rupees a month or less, is that JUST looking at the inflation in Pakistan. As long our system will not change nothing will change and only education and sincere politicians can do that.
I am not a passionate accuser of Mai, I am just bringing up a possiblity not a judgement. Dont you think that this kind of attention can provoke false accusations in the future? My judgement is very clear that those culprits should be burried in the ground uptill their necks and stoned to death because when you rape someone you rape not just one person but the whole society.
Our people need to know their rights and responsibilities and should be educated about their rights as citizens of Pakistan. No one should be afraid of going to police for protection, or to judiciary for justice. There should be checks on police system and prompt action on those checks.
More scientific system is the answer where you dont have to wait for people to come upfront and say that the crime happened but the crime speaks for itself loudly with scientific evidence.
Mai is a BRAVEHEART and I respect her bravery to break the barrier and show the ill factors of the society that women are not mere commodities but still MY THOUGHT ABOUT THE POSSIBLITY STAYS THERE and our system needs to make sure that people dont get advantage of this situation and use it for their own benefit.
I think some of you guys have got this discussion all wrong. The discussion is not merely about rape as a crime. It is about the reaction of the society and its institutions towards the crime. Mukhtarn Mai’s rape was not the first and, unfortunately, it won’t be the last. But it was the conduct of the society and state institutions, during and after this particularly shameful crime was committed, what made it hit the headlines around the world.
Those amongst us who try to minimize the gravity of this shameful crime by quoting statistics of rape and similar crimes from the US and Europe should know that in these countries the society, the police and justice system are always on the side of the victim and they do their best to catch the perpetrators, prosecute them and punish them according to the law. Such cases are never forgotten by the law. Only recently, in a well publicized case in New York, a 60 year old man was arrested and successfully prosecuted with the help of DNA test for a rape he had committed 35 years ago. He could not be successfully prosecuted then because of lack of evidence (DNA not available then), jumped bail and ran away, he thought, into oblivion. His victim, now a 55 year old lawyer, did not have to beg the president or anyone else for justice. The system worked on its own, slowly and surely, and caught up with the perpetrator.
Mukhtaran Mai now is not just a rape victim. She has become an icon of battle against injustice. Those of you who accuse the NGOs for stirring up her case should remember that had it not been for the NGOs and the press she would have been long forgotten as one of the unreported statistics like thousands of others like her.
To her “Passionate” accusers, once when a reporter asked Mukhtaran Mai to explain the accusation that she was doing all this for money, her simple reply was “take all that money and give me justice.”
Danny I agree with you, the whole system needs to be changed. The police force, the judiciary and to be very clear people need to be educated. Majority of our people are so gullible and innocent that one leader give them promises and they vote for him and nothing happened and then in the second term the same leader do the same thing and they vote for him again. That village where the incident happened should have a police station and if there was one available it shouldnt been 9 days after the report was made. They should have arrested the culprits right away if the police system was JUST and immediate DNA testing should have been done. The system needs to be more scientific and more precise. If the system is fast and reliable then no one can say that it was all made up or someone made a false accusation. I hope that politicians in pakistan should do something about it.