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NEWS
WOMAN STONED TO DEATH AFTER "ALLOWING HERSELF TO BE RAPED"
CBS News, USA, 12 July 2001 (CBS)

Humaira Butt, 29, is alive and living in America but she's a wanted woman, marked for death after escaping Pakistan in 1999 with the man she loves.
Before she was born, Butt's father decided she would marry her first cousin. Correspondent Troy Roberts reports.
"I said he's a very bad guy. You know this. You're my parents. Do some mercy. They said no, no way," she said.
When she told her father she was in love with another man - Mahmood Butt - she endured unimaginable punishment. Doctors at the hospital wrapped her entire body with a plaster cast, she said. It resembled what someone would wear with a broken bone. It covered legs, arms and head and neck.
She was trapped in the body cast for two months. "They want me to have lesson," she said. Her family administered a lesson to Mahmood Butt, too. "Sixteen or 14 people were beating me like they were trying to kill me," he said. Mahmood Butt still wears the scars. "They have a knife and they have a sticks. I bleed a lot. I bleed a lot," he recalled. After surviving three days of torture, Mahmood Butt escaped to the United States.
Humaira Butt was released from the body cast, but was locked in her bedroom at home for six years.
In Pakistan and other locales, a woman perceived to be immoral can be killed to cleanse the family name. So-called honor crimes - marrying someone without approval, engaging in premarital sex or even being a victim of rape - are punishable by death.
While the government of Jordan doesn't sanction honor killings, the practice accounts for more than half of the women murdered in this country. Activists say that there is no justification for this in the Koran or Islam.
Sirhan Abdulla's 16-year-old sister Yasmine was a victim of rape. This brought unbearable shame to the family.
"We were in hell," recalled Abdulla. "It was like we were being turned on a spit. My father got diabetes from the stress. My mother got diabetes from the stress. It was all because of this problem."
As news spread through the community, Yasmine knew she faced certain death. With no safe place to go, police placed her into protective custody. And nearly a month later, she was released to her father. But only after he signed a written guarantee that no harm would come to her.
How soon after her release was Yasmine murdered, her brother was asked? "After 15 minutes I shot her," said brother Sirhan Abdulla, adding that he shot her four times in the head. Abdulla served just six months for killing his sister Yasmine.
When asked if that was a fair sentence, Abdulla replied no. "I shouldn't have been in prison for a minute."
In 2000, a bill was introduced in the Jordanian parliament that would toughen the punishment for honor crimes. It was soundly defeated. "You have to put limits to the society," said parliament member Salameh Hiyari, who voted against the bill.
Abdulla said he doesn't think about his sister. "A girl is like a glass plate. Take a glass plate and throw it on the floor and it breaks. Would it be any use anymore or not? A girl is just like that. If she has been violated, she's finished."
And in Pakistan, Humaira believed that she was finished, locked in her room for years, separated from the man she loved. She decided that death was better than the life she was living. She attempted suicide three or four times.
Mahmood Butt, living in America, felt helpless. The couple kept their love alive through smuggled letters and secret phone calls. After six years, the separation became unbeaerable. Mahmood Butt returned to Pakistan determined to marry Humaira regardless of the consequences. "Because you know, I cannot live without her," he said.
Risking everything he snuck into Humaira's house. "That moment was a gorgeous moment," he recalled. "I'm in a dream. I was dreaming. She said...'Why do you come over here? If anybody sees you, they're going to kill us.' I said, 'I don't care about that. If I died, no problem, because I see you,'" he said.
They married secretly and plotted her escape. To gain more freedom, Humaira lied to her parents, telling them she was ready to marry her cousin. Several months later, with every detail in place, Humaira left the house pretending to shop for a wedding dress. As planned, Mahmood Butt was waiting for her.
Humaira's father, a leading Pakistani politician, ordered police to launch a massive manhunt. "They want to kill me," she said.
Humaira's brother was designated as executioner. After four months on the run, they escaped to America and were granted political asylum in 1999. But even now they remain in hiding. With their new son, Humaira and Mahmood Butt are trying to build a future together, a future that was once forbidden.
"I got what I want. My husband. My baby and my sweet home. Now I am happy," Humaira Butt said amid tears. © MMI, CBS Worldwide Inc. All Rights Reserved.