July 7 (Compass Direct) – Freed on bail, a Pakistani charged with raping
Ribqa Masih has continued to threaten the young Christian woman who accused him
of pressuring her to convert to Islam by violating her . “I’m afraid to go
outside,” said Masih before breaking into tears. “Mentally, I’ve been too
disturbed to study.” Masih had finished her high school examinations and was
awaiting the results in September 2005 when wealthy Muslim neighbors in this
town near Faisalabad kidnapped and raped her, she said. Among them was Muhammad
Kashif, who was granted bail on a technicality the law gives to criminal
suspects suffering from illness: psoriasis. “Psoriasis did not stop him from
raping Masih,” said Khalil Tahir Sindhu, Masih’s lawyer. Nor did it keep Kashif
from fleeing police in a Faisalabad courtroom last October when his initial
request for pre-arrest bail was rejected. The anguish of a rape victim in
Pakistani society may be impossible to comprehend, but Compass Direct
correspondent Peter Lamprecht returned from a visit to Masih’s home with a
report that sheds light on her life in the
shadows.