Forced marriage GP in legal victory

Humayra Abedin, 32, from east London, was granted injunctions by a judge who warned that the British courts would act "swiftly and decisively" in cases where there had been a "gross abuse of an individual's human rights".

Mr Justice Coleridge, sitting in the High Court's Family Division in London, said the orders were to protect Dr Abedin "and prevent her being removed from this country again without her consent".

For "anyone of any age" to go through a marriage without their consent was "a complete aberration of the whole concept of marriage in a civilised society", he declared.

Dr Abedin, who has lived in the UK since 2002 and is training to be a GP, returned to Britain on Tuesday.

She was freed by a Bangladeshi court on Sunday after London's High Court ordered her release under the new Forced Marriage Act, which prohibits an individual from being married against their will.

On her return Dr Abedin said that on November 14 she had been forced to marry a man of her parents' choice and went through a wedding ceremony "under duress".

She was in court as her counsel, Hassan Khan, told the judge that she had travelled to Bangladesh on August 2 on a return ticket to see her mother after being informed that she was ill.

But when she went to the family home in Dhaka on August 5 she was "manhandled" into the property by a number of people and immediately locked in a room. She was monitored by guards and had her passport taken from her.

In a statement after the hearing Dr Abedin was described as being "deeply upset by what has occurred and the treatment she has suffered". It said: "She does not wish for her parents to suffer any punishment for what has been done by them to her. She is their only child."