The first casualty of war may be truth but the first casualty of any ‘religious militancy’ is women’s rights.
In the now famous ‘flogging video’ — undated footage shot with a cell phone in Swat (judging by the language and clothes) — a man whips a woman in red lying face down on the ground, pinned down by two men, encircled by a crowd of other men. It is painful to watch the leather strap thwack down on her buttocks as she cries out in pain. There is much obscene in this image, not least the man holding down her arms, squatting so that her burqa-covered hea d is practically forced between his thighs.
The video, circulated on the Internet before local television channels broadcast it, caused a furore in Pakistan and internationally. What caused the outrage? The public punishment meted out to a woman — or the fact that it was broadcast?
Those who helped make the incident public, including the man who told television channel Dawn News that he made the video, and an anthropologist- filmmaker with NGO links are under threat for their part in what many term a ‘drama’ staged to give ‘a bad name’ to Pakistan and to Islam. Political forces and local residents join this chorus, terming the broadcast a bid to sabotage the peace deal.
The Taliban claim that the woman who was really flogged was accused of fornicating with her father in law, and that small boys meted out the punishment (that is, to humiliate rather than hurt). The woman in the video, whose face is never visible, was accused of ‘adultery’— after allegedly being in the company of a na-mehram (unrelated) man — who was also flogged. Her subsequent denial of the flogging before a magistrate may reflect the intimidation she faces. The point is, someone was flogged, and it wasn’t the first time that the Taliban meted out such a public punishment.
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