SUMMARY

The International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission (IGLHRC) has been closely monitoring the case of a female to male transgender man and his female born wife who were hiding from family violence, turned to the court for help, and ended up in prison. Thirty-one year old Shumail Raj who has been a transgender man for 16 years and 26-year old Shahzina Tariq were married according to Muslim law in September 2006. In May 2007, Shahzina’s father testified in court that Shumail was not a man. The judge ordered a medical examination, which showed that Shumail had undergone gender reassignment surgery to remove his uterus and breasts. On May 22, the Lahore High Court found the couple guilty of perjury and fined each of them 10,000 rupees and sentenced them to 3 years in prison. The court’s reasoning was that Shumail was a woman who lied about being a man, and the couple lied about the legality of their marriage since two women in Pakistan cannot marry. Shumail and Shahzina are now serving their sentence in two separate women’s prisons in two different cities.

They have threatened suicide.

ACTIONS

IGLHRC is working with allies in Pakistan to provide support to Ms. Tariq and Mr. Raj. IGLHRC is also in contact with other human rights groups on how to bolster the efforts of the two attorneys in Pakistan who are planning to file an appeal before the Pakistan Supreme Court with hopes for an acquittal.

1. Please send your letters of support to Ms. Tariq and Mr. Raj so they feel less isolated and more uplifted by international support. Please send your emails in care of Nighat Saeed Khan, executive director of ASR Resource Centre, who is in close contact with the couple while they are in prison. Her email address is: nskhan46@yahoo.com. Please indicate that you are writing to Shumail and Shahzina.
2. If you are aware of similar cases in your countries and how they were dealt with, please email Khawar Mumtaz, Senior Coordinator of Shirkat Gah’s Women’s Resource Center at: khawar@sgah.org.pk.
3. Although the lawyers on this case are donating their services, funds are needed for other expenses such as stamp papers, court fees, and transport. Contact Shirkat Gah for details.

The letters and case notes from other countries are important. They can be useful for strengthening campaigns to win justice and support for the Raj-Tariq case.

Please send copies of your emails or other communications to: Grace Poore, Research and Policy Associate, Asia and Pacific Islands at gpoore@iglhrc.org.

BACKGROUND

Shahzina Tariq’s family objected when she married Shumail Raj. They wanted Shazina to marry someone else to settle a family gambling debt. Her father accused Shumail of kidnapping his daughter and commiting fraud, and the family began harassing the couple. Shumail and Shahzina filed a complaint with the lower court in Faisalabad, Shazina’s hometown. The court decided in their favor since they were both adults and legally married. However, the harassment did not stop but extended to the couple’s friends who were asked to pressure the couple to divorce. In May 2007, Shahzina and Shumail sought legal help and filed a complaint with the High Court In Lahore. In response, the family made death threats. When the medical examination showed that Shumail had had gender reassignment surgery, the judge asked the couple to show cause as to why they should not be prosecuted under Section 193 of the Pakistan Penal Code for filing a false affidavit. Terrified, the couple went into hiding. The judge issued an arrest warrant. Within a few days, Shumail and Shazina were arrested and jailed in two separate facilities, one in Lahore and the other in Faisalabad. Their request to be placed in the same cell was denied. International and local press reports sensationalized the couple’s lives, “outing” Shumail to close friends and colleagues, and speculating on the sentence. They faced the possibility of seven years in prison for deceiving the court about Shumail’s identity or life in prison for violating Section 377 of the Pakistan Penal Code, which criminalizes same sex relations. The couple apologized to the court, which Judge Kahawaja Mohammed Sharif took into consideration. Instead of seven years, he gave them three.

Shumail says that he wants to go abroad to have two more surgeries. Shahzina says theirs is a love marriage and that she knew about Shumail’s identity. The couple says, “We’re not homosexuals. We want to live together. We love each other. We don’t feel safe in Pakistan.”

Grace Poore, IGLHRC’s Research and Policy Associate, Asia and Pacific Islands, says, “It’s heart rending that two people who love each other are being persecuted because their relationship doesn’t conform to social norms. The couple went to the court for protection and ended up being re-victimized. Withholding information that Shumail was a transgender man was based on fear; it was an act of survival to avoid being put on display, shamed and hounded. It wasn’t an act of malice. The irony is that the people who used violence and death threats against the couple have not been held accountable.”

Pakistan, like Iran and United Arab Emirates does have an old tradition of the third gender even if Pakistan’s lawmakers have been silent on this. Faisal Alam, founder of Al-Fatiha, the Washington D.C.-based national organization for GLBT Muslims notes, “This case does have the potential to change Pakistan's legal attitudes toward gender-variant people.”