Bangladesh

A story from East Pakistan (as was), depressingly similar to those going on in old West Pakistan. That it "provoked protests across the country" is at least something to cling on to, but the rise of the Sharia bully boys continues across the globe.

-------------

Girl, 14, whipped to death in fatwa
Metro
03 Fed 2011
Four Islamic clerics have been arrested after a teenage girl was whipped to death for having an ‘affair’ with a married man.

The men allegedly issued a fatwa – a religious ruling – that 14-year-old Mosammet Hena should be given 100 lashes. The girl was publicly whipped with a cane at a village near Dhaka in Bangladesh but collapsed after 70 lashes and died in hospital.

The 40-year-old man who was said to have slept with her was also sentenced to 100 lashes but fled the area. There were claims he had raped Mosammet.

'We are hunting for the man,’ said police chief AKM Shahidur Rahman.

Fatwas are illegal in Bangladesh, a Muslim-majority nation governed by secular laws, and the incident – in the Shariatpur district – provoked protests across the country. Bangladesh’s high court has demanded government officials and police explain their failure to safeguard Mosammet.

It has also told police to submit a report explaining what steps they had taken to comply with an earlier court order to stop ‘extra-judicial killings’ in the name of Sharia law fatwas.