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- <text id=91TT0842>
- <title>
- Apr. 22, 1991: World Notes:Pakistan
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1991
- Apr. 22, 1991 Nancy Reagan:Is She THAT Bad?
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- WORLD, Page 57
- World Notes
- PAKISTAN
- Tightening Islam's Grip
- </hdr><body>
- <p> "I am not a fundamentalist," declared Prime Minister Mian
- Nawaz Sharif last week, but that did not stop him from introducing
- broad legislation to make strict Islamic law, or Shari`a, the
- "supreme law of Pakistan." Addressing a joint session of
- Pakistan's Senate and National Assembly, Nawaz Sharif outlined
- a legislative package that includes changes in the education and
- judicial systems and the restructuring of the economy along
- Islamic lines. The proposed legislation fulfills Nawaz Sharif's
- election promise to the small but powerful Islamic parties that
- helped him defeat Benazir Bhutto last October.
- </p>
- <p> Fundamentalist groups have reacted with cautious approval,
- but opponents of the bill, including educated women and
- lawyers, charge that it would pave the way for a militant and
- repressive Muslim theocracy, confine women to their homes and
- bring the media and the educational system under the control of
- Islamic clerics. The worst-case interpretation of Shari`a also
- favors the banning of music, dance and cinema, and the mandatory
- wearing of veils by women in public.
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
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