Senate furore.

TO denounce 'honour killings' while at the same time defending the concepts in which they are rooted, is perverse, illogical and dangerous. But that is precisely what Senator Mohsin Aziz tried to do on Friday during a discussion on the annual report of the National Commission on Women when he said that 'honour killings are a problem', but honour and culture are important too. In other words, he proved himself an apologist for this vile practice. Senator Aziz went on to condemn the NGOs behind last year's Aurat March - an event that has aroused much moral panic for its display of women's refusal to abide by their 'prescribed' role and conform to society's double standards. In fact, the senator disparaged the entire women's rights movement in the country as being led by an elite class that in any case already enjoyed the rights they were supposedly agitating for. Fortunately, Senator Aziz's reprehensible words met with a fiery response from the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Sherry Rehman, who denounced the view that cultural norms justify the oppression of women in any form. The upper house, she said, must adopt a bipartisan approach to unequivocally condemn the practice of honour killing. Senator Rehman also paid fulsome tribute to the women's rights activists who, she pointed out, fought not for themselves...