Nov 15, 2006, 13:42 GMT
Islamabad - Islamists in the National Assembly of Pakistan Wednesday fiercely opposed a bill introduced by the government on protecting the rights of women.
Opposition leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman led the onslaught by condemning the Women's Protection Bill as 'a conspiracy to turn our Islamic country into a free-sex zone.'
His six-party Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) Islamic alliance, which rules two of the country's four provinces, has threatened its members would resign their seats in the assembly if the bill was passed without the amendments they seek.
One of the amendments the MMA demands is to declare sex between consenting men and woman outside marriage lewd and unlawful.
Rights activists and the US and its allies had been pressuring President Pervez Musharraf's government to reform, if not revoke, the Islamic Hudood laws that former military dictator Zia ul-Haq had decreed in 1979 which dealt with sex crimes and murders and were considered oppressive to women.
Law Minister Wasi Zafar's assurance that critics of the bill could move amendments during the debate on the bill that would last two days but it did not calm down the agitators.
Even some liberal parties represented in the assembly withheld their support for the bill because of their dislike of General Musharraf who assumed power in a military coup against the civilian government of prime minister Nawaz Sharif in 1999.
A spokesman for Sharif's faction of Pakistan Muslim League, Ahsan Iqbal, alleged that the bill was intended to divide the opposition 'otherwise Musharraf could have rescinded the controversial Hudood laws using his dictatorial powers.'
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