In a move that has angered women's rights advocates across the globe, an Afghani woman who was jailed after being raped, was freed from imprisonment on Thursday after Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai pardoned her after the victim's agreeing to marry her attacker. According to a government statement, the woman, Gulnaz, gave birth in prison to a daughter and was only allowed to be freed after she agreed, reluctantly, to marry the rapist. According to the lawyer, Gulnaz had hoped to be freed from jail and not be forced to marry her attacker. Human rights organizations inside and outside the country have reported hundreds of women are currently languishing in Afghan jails after being raped. “In my conversations with Gulnaz she told me that if she had the free choice she would not marry the man who raped her,” said Kimberley Motley, the woman's lawyer, told BBC. Motley did add that Gulnaz's release was not conditional on her marrying the rapist. Gulnaz said that after she was raped she was charged with adultery. “At first my sentence was two years,” she said. “When I appealed it became 12 years. I didn't do anything. Why should I be sentenced for so long?” In the latest appeal, it was reduced to three years. The presidential palace's statement made note of the concept of rape in its public declaration freeing the woman. It said a meeting of the judiciary committee had “discussed the issue of rape… and the issue of her imprisonment”. “As the both sides [Gulnaz and the rapist] have agreed to get married to each other with conditions, respective authorities were tasked to take action upon it according to Islamic Shariah [law],” it said. “The president ordered the office of administrative affairs and the secretariat of the council of ministers to make the decree of Gulnaz's release.” But women's rights activists and groups have cried foul, saying the simple fact that the woman was imprisoned in the first place is wrong and defies logic. “How could this woman be charged with any crime, unless Afghanistan and its conservative government are again returning to the ways we were forced to live under the Taliban,” said the female assistant to a high-ranking official in the country, speaking to Bikyamasr.com on condition of anonymity. “I guess being a woman in this country is still a crime.” BM
