LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - A Pakistani cleric in the Baluchistan province has issued a fatwa declaring that any woman using a cell phone can justifiably be attacked with acid.

In addition, a former Pakistani lawmaker and prominent cleric Maulana Abdul Haleem says that secular women working with non-governmental organizations can be captured and forcibly "married" to local men if they dare work on women's education, health, or welfare projects in the district of Kohistan.

According to the organization, Maulana Abdul Haleem is not just any cleric. "A member of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party, [he] is known to have nurtured a generation of Islamic clerics in Pakistan.

"In 2002 he was elected a Member of the National Assembly, the lower house of the parliament, from the platform of Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, an alliance of religious-political parties cobbled together at the behest of then-Pakistani military ruler General Pervez Musharraf," the organization says.

The cleric's other accomplishments include declaring poppy cultivation in Kohistan, a major source of heroin production worldwide, is "in accordance with Islam."

Two very brave Pakistani women are fighting and ridiculing the new declarations.

"Who will tell the 'fatwa guys' that they are nearly an extinct species?" Fouzia Saeed wrote in an article.  "Who will tell these men that they need to wake up to 2012 . Perhaps they should be kept in a museum with the caption: 'we used to have people like this who thought work for women was 'un-Islamic,' but marrying them by force was 'Islamic.' Idiots who thought talking on a cell phone was 'un-Islamic,' but throwing acid in women's faces was 'Islamic!'"

Another female author, Tazeen Javed, wrote that "[We] are teeming millions of people who cannot feed themselves, have limited access to energy, and will be dumber and weaker in the future because of the stunted mental and physical growth of our children due to the lack of education.

"At such a juncture in history, amongst us is individuals who issue fatwas and promote misogyny and obscurantism against hygiene, education, health, and progress.

"In short, a former legislator issues fatwas during a Friday sermon inciting hatred against [NGO workers] and declaring the constitutional rights of getting an education for half of the population forbidden and no one, barring a few bloggers and tweeters, raises even an eyebrow," Javed writes.

© 2012, Distributed by NEWS CONSORTIUM.