Sobia Batool Shah is being protected in hospital after a mob of male relatives attacked her in a harrowing case that highlights Pakistan’s epidemic of gender-based violence

The household was fast asleep when the six men broke in. They sought out Sobia Batool Shah, 22, and one of them attacked her with a hatchet, chopping at her limbs in an effort to sever her legs. “He was relentless and must have hit me at least 15 times,” she says.

“I screamed in pain and pleaded with him to stop, but he was like a man possessed,” she adds. “I even told him I will not seek a divorce.”

Shah was attacked by men from her own family – including her father, Syed Mustafa Shah, her uncle and cousins – who broke into the house, in Naushahro Feroze, in Pakistan’s Sindh province, as “punishment” for refusing to withdraw her application to divorce her husband.

Speaking to the Guardian by phone from the Peoples University of Medical and Health Sciences for Women, in the city of Nawabshah, where she is being treated, Shah says she is in “immense pain” and her legs are both in plaster.

  • Rikudou_SageEnglish
    5•3 months ago

    No, I never said that and I’d prefer you not using strawmen.

    My country has a fair share of misogynists as do all other countries. But you don’t see this happening here, because our misogynists don’t think that it’s their god given right and that eternal happiness awaits them if they chop off their daughter’s legs.

    That thing is vile and disgusting and I don’t know how many times do you need to see this happening with Islam to maybe think that the religion might not be that great?

    • @[email protected]OPEnglish
      0•3 months ago

      Seems someone forgot to tell muslims? Because they do it in the name of their god, you know?

      You said that so you can’t argue strawman buddy.

      • Rikudou_SageEnglish
        0•3 months ago

        Well, educate me then, because I don’t see the strawman in that statement.

        • @[email protected]OPEnglish
          0•3 months ago

          You accused another poster of a strawman argument when there wasn’t one, even tho you yourself are guilty of using strawman arguments (in your comment history).

          • Rikudou_SageEnglish
            0•3 months ago

            You really saying that all of them think this is acceptable?

            That was a strawman. And yeah, I probably inadvertently used them myself in the past. And everyone has every right on calling me out on it. I’m pretty sure you did at least one bad thing in your life, does that mean all the good things about you should be ignored? I don’t believe so.

            I have every right to call out a strawman if it’s used against me and will continue to do so.

            • Jojo, Lady of the WestEnglish
              1•3 months ago

              I agree that statement is formatted a lot like a straw man, but it was also a pretty decent reframing of the argument you made.

              The case was made that Islam allows divorce and your reply was that “someone should tell the Muslims”