Don't single out Pakistan on women's rights: Musharraf

ISLAMABAD, Thursday (AFP) Rights groups should not single out Pakistan for criticism over violence against women despite a series of rape cases that have rocked the Islamic republic, President Pervez Musharraf said Wednesday.

Musharraf - who came under fire from the United States in June when he banned a high-profile gang rape victim from travelling abroad - said the issue was a global one. "Pakistan must not be demonized and singled out as being the only country having this problem - that is not the reality," he told an international conference on violence against women.

The two-day conference is being attended by 65 delegates from 25 countries including the Untied States, Britain, Sweden, Canada, Norway and Saudi Arabia, as well as civil representatives from Pakistan.

Pakistan's hosting of the event follows criticism from many rights groups for its handling of key rape cases, such as the 2002 rape of Mukhtaran Mai which was carried out on the orders of a tribal council.

However Musharraf said he felt "hurt" when Pakistan was maligned by what he called vested interests with a political agenda against the country. "No doubt we should address the individual cases like Mukhtaran Mai and Doctor Shazia, but we should not be bogged down in individual cases," he said. "We should look out for entrenched underlying causes and find remedies."

"We have to eliminate feudal and tribal culture through education and enlightenment as they lie at the core of the problem," he said.

Mai won worldwide acclaim for her pursuit of justice in June, when Pakistan's Supreme Court ordered the rearrest of 13 men linked to her case and suspended their acquittals by lower courts.

Musharraf then banned her from addressing rights groups in the United States, reportedly because he thought it would give Pakistan bad publicity. Islamabad dropped the ban a few days later under pressure from Washington. Doctor Shazia Khalid's reported rape in the southwestern gasfield town of Sui triggered tribal violence in January that left eight people dead.

About 4,000 people, mostly women, have been killed in deeply conservative rural areas of Pakistan in recent years in the name of protecting family honour.

Many others have been raped or burnt with acid under codes of tribal justice.