A Pakistani couple was sent to jail on May 28 on the grounds that they had lied about the husband’s sex. The couple married last year after the husband, Shumail Raj, 31, had undergone sex-change operations, but a high court in the city of Lahore found that he was a woman.
Judge Khawaja Sharif sentenced Raj and his wife, Shezina Tariq, 24, to jail for three years and imposed a fine of 10,000 rupees ($166) each for perjury. He said a decision on whether to annul the marriage would be taken at a hearing next month. Raj and Tariq were arrested in May on the orders of the high court after Raj appealed for protection from harassment by relatives who disapproved of their marriage.
Pakistan is a predominantly Muslim nation and sex-change surgery is illegal, a lawyer said.
