The Supreme Court in Pakistan has begun an appeal hearing in a high profile case arising from the gang rape of a woman in a remote village in Punjab.
The government is acting on behalf of the woman, 33-year-old Mukhtaran Mai in an appeal against the acquittal of five men who were originally sentenced to death for gang raping her in 2002.
Her rape had been ordered by the village tribal elders after her young brother, who was 12 at the time, had been accused of having illicit sex with a woman from a powerful local family.
The case has caused outrage in Pakistan and abroad.
