Pakistan took a step out of the Dark Ages yesterday, but you can be sure Islamists are already plotting violence in response: Senate passes women’s bill; MMA amendments rejected. (Hat tip: Shr_Nfr.)

ISLAMABAD, Nov 23: Foes became friends for a while once again on Thursday as the Senate passed a key women’s rights bill in the face of protests by hardline religious parties and their threat to resign from the National Assembly.

The overwhelming ‘yes’ vote in the 100-seat upper house, in which three non-religious opposition parties voted with the ruling coalition, completed the parliamentary approval of the Protection of Women (Criminal Laws Amendment) Bill, which now needs only a presidential assent to become law to reform the 27-year-old controversial Hudood decrees on adultery and rape.

The bill was passed by the 342-seat National Assembly last week when religious parties grouped in the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) boycotted the voting and threatened to resign from their 65 seats in the house to protest against what they saw as a move to negate Islamic punishments for sex outside wedlock but the MMA took full part in the two-day Senate debate — often marked by an unusually frank public discussion about the facts of life — and in the final vote, refraining from an expected walkout, although its members chanted protest slogans at the end of the proceedings as chairman Mohammedmian Soomro prorogued the house after a three-day session especially called to pass the bill. …

The house rejected a total of 17 amendments, most of them moved by MMA Senators, which seemed aimed to nullify the purpose of the bill, which the government says is in accord with Islamic injunctions and is meant to protect women from the widely complained misuse of the Hudood ordinances about Zina (adultery and rape) and Qazf (false accusation of Zina) enforced in 1979 by then-military ruler General Mohammad Ziaul Haq.

It also voted down an MMA member’s motion seeking to refer the bill to the CII for advice whether it was or not repugnant to Islam.

Senator after senator from the MMA and some from other groups attacked the bill with religious arguments that it was contrary to the holy Quran and Sunnah because of perceived changes being made in Islamic punishments for Zina.