Four women and two men have been sentenced to death in northern Pakistan for singing and dancing at a wedding

Islamic clerics issued a decree after a mobile phone video emerged of the six enjoying themselves in a remote village in the mountainous district of Kohistan, 109 miles north of the capital Islamabad. Pakistani authorities in the area said that local Muslim clerics had ordered the punishment over allegations that the men and women danced and sang together in Gada village, in defiance of strict tribal customs that separate men and women at weddings. "The local clerics issued a decree to kill all four women and two men shown in the video," district police officer Abdul Majeed Afridi said. "It was decided that the men will be killed first, but they ran away so the women are safe for the moment. I have sent a team to rescue them and am waiting to hear some news," he said, adding that the women had been confined to their homes. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said that at least 943 women and girls were murdered in 2011 for defaming their family's honor. The statistics highlight the scale of violence suffered by many women in Muslim Pakistan, where they are frequently treated as second-class citizens.