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'Honor rape' case heads to Supreme Court

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, March 7 (UPI) -- The Pakistan government will appeal against the acquittal of five men convicted of a gang rape in a so-called "honor" punishment.

Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said the government will file an appeal shortly in the Supreme Court, the BBC reported Sunday.

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In 2002, the Meerwala village council allegedly ordered Mukhtar Mai to be raped by village men as punishment for accusations that her brother, then 12, sexually assaulted a woman from the Mastoi clan. It was later revealed that her brother had been molested by Mastoi men who tried to cover it up with the accusations.

In August 2002 six men -- the leader of the village council, a council member and the four men accused of carrying out the rape -- were convicted and sentenced to death. Five of those convictions were overturned in Lahore last Thursday. A sixth man, one of the village elders, had his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment.

Women's organizations have described the acquittals as "shocking."

Mai, 33 and a teacher, has one of Pakistan's most prominent lawyers fighting her case in the Supreme Court and the support of Pakistan's human rights and women's rights groups.

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