PAKISTAN: Video footage of flogging sends shockwaves across country
PESHAWAR, 7. April 2009: Video footage of flogging of a 17-year-old girl by bearded Taliban extremists in volatile Swat Valley, North West Frontier Province (NWFP), has sent shockwaves across Pakistan and highlighted the issue of violence against women.
Like millions of others, Uzma Khan (not her real name), 16, watched the public flogging of the girl in the village of Kala Killay in Swat’s Kabal Tehsil area, and wept. “
– The screams of that poor girl were just unbearable. She was treated like an animal. Now I want to leave Swat for ever,” Uzma told IRIN news.
The case of the teenager, identified as Chand Bibi, hit the headlines after private TV channels repeatedly played a low quality video of her being held down in a blue burqa’ and flogged in a street by the Pakistani Taliban.
Protests have been held in all major cities; the president and prime minister have demanded an inquiry.
The story being circulated in the media is that the girl had been spotted with a man unrelated to her. The local Taliban ordered that both Chand Bibi and Adalat Khan, with whom she was spotted, be flogged 30 times for “immoral” behaviour.
Kilder: FN-tjenesten IRIN og The Push Journal
