The footage recently made public showing the flogging of a girl in Swat and the execution of a man and woman in their 40s reportedly in the Hangu district must have sickened anyone with respect for human rights and dignity. As such, these videos constitute a graphic reminder of the fact that behind the rhetoric of religion, the real face of the Taliban is one of unmixed brutality and murderousness.
This should come as no surprise. Since the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan during the 1990s and in Pakistan more recently, there has been ample evidence that the otherwise harmless moniker — which means ‘students’ — is a mask worn by an ideologically united group that uses tactics of violence, fear and gross coercion to get its way.
Given this, it is alarming that Pakistan’s state and society continue to bury their heads in the sand and resort to denial of either specific acts of brutality or the threat in general posed by the Taliban. The most recent example of this approach is an investigation team’s conclusion that the video depicting the whipping of the young woman in Swat was ‘fake and false’, as indicated by Interior Secretary Kamal Shah.
He quoted the final report as saying that that no such incident took place since the girl in question denied it and the area’s residents also expressed their ignorance. Yet anyone who has suffered such an act of barbarity, and who continues to live under the shadow of his or her persecutors, is unlikely to risk inducing their ire further. More dangerous, however, is the reduction of the issue to a debate over whether or not the video was ‘real’ and when exactly the incident took place.
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