ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Peoples Party co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari has praised parliament for consensus legislation that closes the loophole of forgiveness in murders in the name of honour and stops rapists from walking away with impunity.

“October 6 will be remembered as a ground-breaking day when the anti-honour killing and anti-rape bills were passed in the joint session of parliament,” he said in a statement issued by the party’s media centre here on Saturday.

“Parliament has done its job, what is needed now is to implement these laws in letter and spirit. A law is as good or as bad as is its implementation,” the former president said. He said that by closing the loophole, parliament had asserted that it was not the spirit of religion to condone pre-meditated murders in the name of honour.

Published in Dawn, October 9th, 2016