WTF?

I have a hard time comprehending the story about the tribal council meting out tribal "justice" by having an innocent girl gang raped because her 11 year old brother walked unchaperoned with a girl from another tribe. Supposedly the rapists are now being pursued by Pakistani police.

Now I understand that the same actions may be perceived very differently in other parts of the world (be it an 11 year old kid walking with another unsupervised) and that other cultures have different forms of punishment. I can empathize with that, even if I often disagree. But this incident is so wrong at so many levels that it's unconceivable to me how anyone, let alone the "several hundred village residents" who witnessed the "trial" and none of whom took any action to prevent the rape, could not be outraged by it.

Yet, our own society is not that far removed from such "tribal law". Be it a mob lynching in the Old West or the many lynching in the segregated South during the 19th and 20th century.

Still, as wrong as these things were (and there is no excuse for them), at least they were usually punishing the alleged perpetrator and not an innocent family member (although, that probably happened, as well).

I hope for and expect a strong official condemnation from our government. No matter that this happened in an "allied" country.