The Risks of Defending an “Outlaw”

Faisal Siddiqi knows the risks that come from representing alleged rape victims like Kainat Soomro, the focus of the FRONTLINE film Outlawed In Pakistan, in court.

“There is no two opinions about it,” he told the filmmakers. “If you do cases like this, you put the whole family in danger.”

So why do it? As Siddiqi explained in the above bonus scene from the film:

You constantly think about it — whether you’ve taken the morally right decision to put their lives in danger because of something you believe in. The other side is that you might have to live with the consequence of abandoning such a case … That will have an effect on not only your life, but the kind of person you become and then the kind of father you become to your children. Kainat is someone’s daughter. You have a daughter, so you abandon Kainat, will you abandon your daughter also?