Crisis in the global mediasphere: Desire, displeasure and cultural transformation

In 2009 the New York Times ran a story about the marriage of a Pakistani woman, Mukhtaran Bibi, who had been caught up in a village honour dispute several years earlier. While there are numerous accounts of the event, it is clear that the village council was controlled by the MastOi clan, which was richer and far more powerful than Bibi's clan the Gujjar Tatla. The Mastoi accused Bibi's 12 year-old brother of ;iadti (rape, sodomy or illegal sex) or zina (fornication or adultery) on the grounds that he had been seen walking unaccompanied with a Mastoi girl. According to the brother's testimony delivered much later to an authorized, state court, he had himself been raped and sodomized by three Mastoi men, who then invented the honour crime story in order to deflect attention from their own crime. When the Mastoi abducted the accused brother, Bibi's family offered a settlement arrangement, even though they believed the boy to be entirely innocent.