The Internet-broadcasted public flogging of a young girl by Taliban members in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) has enraged sections of Pakistan society, and given a taste of the newly-brokered brand of religious justice in Swat. The beating has refreshed debates on religion-backed violence against women in the country, but equally as disturbing, is the light it has thrown on the working relationship between state actors and the Taliban. In the days since the girl was beaten, she and her family have been stifled, the crime has been denied and the blame has been shifted to a variety of unlikely players.
Cruelty under the guise of spirituality
17-year-old Chand Bibi was reportedly found out of her home, buying groceries while unaccompanied. Weeks before, the Taliban and an extremist group led by Soofi Mohammad had brokered an agreement with the government that enforced religious rules, including a law that obliges women to stay inside the house unless with close males relatives.
On In the mid of the March, 2009, the religious authorities made Chand Bibi their first example of Taliban justice, suggesting that spectators record the punishment on their mobile phones. The video shows the teenager pinned face-down on the ground, clothed, with two men on her upper body and one holding down her legs, while a fourth flogs her buttocks with a stick in front of a large crowd, thirty-five times. Afterwards positive, proud statements were issued by Taliban spokesmen and journalists for religious news publications.
A swift about-turn
However when the local population started to react against the video — followed by the rest of the country in the media and street protests — the Taliban changed their account of the incident; the girls charged was changed to fornication. She is reported to have been quickly married to a young man, Mr. Adalat Khan, also now implicated, and her punishment was heralded as lenient.
After the Supreme Court took up the case in a suo moto action, the Inspector General of the area was pressured into lodging a First Information Report with the police. He lodged it against unknown persons, though the men beating Chand Bibi can be identified in the video. Social organizations have reported that the family cant be reached for comment, and when the case went to court, the judges were unable to try the case without the victim present.
Local organizations say that Qazis, the Islamic courts judges and other Taliban members are pressuring the family to keep quiet. Mr. Abdul Latif Afridi, President of Peshawar High Court Bar Association has said that Chand Bibi, was forced by various Taliban leaders, along with officials from the provincial government, to confirm the new charges and not to attend the hearing. The girls family, in turn, has said that their religious traditions do not allow the girl to be produced before a large group of men. However the Inspector Generals FIR mentions Chand Bibis first report to a number of men, including the Commissioner of the Malakand division Mr. Syed Javed and Islamic court judge Mr. Qazi Riaz.
Having failed to sway public opinion in favour of the girls flogging, Taliban members have begun to suggest that the video was staged — a conspiracy of NGOs, or Americans.
A loss of credibility
The case has served to quickly discredit the strain of Taliban justice that is being meted out in Swat Valley and condoned by the government. It has also shown the weakness of the government, once again, in the face of the Taliban and other religious radicals. And again it has taken civil society and media commentators to question and condemn the violation of basic womens rights, and the hypocrisy of a punishment broadcast as titillation by a group that claims to uphold the highest of moral values.
