Pakistan Court Investigates Taliban Flogging Video
Chief justice berates officials over failure to explain incident but says footage may not be genuine
Pakistan's supreme court today launched an investigation into a video showing Taliban militants flogging a 17-year-old woman, hours before top American officials were due in Islamabad for talks on the country's deteriorating security situation.
The recently restored chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, summoned senior government officials before a special eight-judge bench in response to public outrage over the video, which shows a bearded militant whipping the screaming woman 34 times.
The video was shot in the Swat valley, where the North-West Frontier government signed a controversial peace deal with Taliban militants in February.
Chaudhry, who got his job back last month after two years of street protests, berated senior officials for failing to provide a satisfactory explanation of the incident and for failing to produce the girl, named as Chaand Bibi, in court.
The hearing saw a hint of score settling: Chaudhry was critical of the interior secretary, Kamal Shah, who helped place the judge under house arrest on orders from the then president Pervez Musharraf in 2007. Chaudhry told the civil servant he was only good at detaining judges and ordered him to give a handwritten undertaking of co-operation. Shah complied and wrote the letter.
Chaudhry refused to accept a copy of the February peace agreement, saying it had no legal standing because President Asif Ali Zardari has yet to sign into law proposed changes to the valley's legal system allowing for the implementation of Sharia law.
In his final remarks, the judge said there was a chance that the video was not real, and ordered the government to produce a report on the matter every 15 days.
Initial public outrage over the video has segued into controversy as the Taliban, provincial officials and some rightwing commentators cast doubt on its authenticity, variously claiming that it was manufactured or filmed so long ago as to be invalid.
Hundreds of people mounted a street protest over the tape in Mingora, the main town in the Swat valley, denouncing it as a tool to derail the fragile peace agreement.
In the supreme court, provincial officials said they had visited Chaand Bibi at her village and she had denied she was the burka-clad figure featured in the video.
The critics are countered by human rights activists and secular parties who regard the footage as proof of the Taliban threat as militants advance from their bases in tribal areas into mainstream Pakistan. The Taliban claimed responsibility for two suicide attacks over the weekend that killed eight people, mostly paramilitary soldiers, in Islamabad, and 26 Shia worshipers outside a mosque in Chakwal, in Punjab province.
The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which controls Karachi, demanded the public execution of the men involved in the flogging incident. "I urge [the government] to arrest and try them, sentence them to death and keep their bodies hung publicly for as many days as they had flogged the innocent girl," said the party chief, Altaf Hussain, in a statement.
Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the US military chief, Admiral Mike Mullen, are due in Islamabad later today for talks on the growing Taliban threat. They are expected to visit India tomorrow.
The recently restored chief justice, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, summoned senior government officials before a special eight-judge bench in response to public outrage over the video, which shows a bearded militant whipping the screaming woman 34 times.
The video was shot in the Swat valley, where the North-West Frontier government signed a controversial peace deal with Taliban militants in February.
Chaudhry, who got his job back last month after two years of street protests, berated senior officials for failing to provide a satisfactory explanation of the incident and for failing to produce the girl, named as Chaand Bibi, in court.
The hearing saw a hint of score settling: Chaudhry was critical of the interior secretary, Kamal Shah, who helped place the judge under house arrest on orders from the then president Pervez Musharraf in 2007. Chaudhry told the civil servant he was only good at detaining judges and ordered him to give a handwritten undertaking of co-operation. Shah complied and wrote the letter.
Chaudhry refused to accept a copy of the February peace agreement, saying it had no legal standing because President Asif Ali Zardari has yet to sign into law proposed changes to the valley's legal system allowing for the implementation of Sharia law.
In his final remarks, the judge said there was a chance that the video was not real, and ordered the government to produce a report on the matter every 15 days.
Initial public outrage over the video has segued into controversy as the Taliban, provincial officials and some rightwing commentators cast doubt on its authenticity, variously claiming that it was manufactured or filmed so long ago as to be invalid.
Hundreds of people mounted a street protest over the tape in Mingora, the main town in the Swat valley, denouncing it as a tool to derail the fragile peace agreement.
In the supreme court, provincial officials said they had visited Chaand Bibi at her village and she had denied she was the burka-clad figure featured in the video.
The critics are countered by human rights activists and secular parties who regard the footage as proof of the Taliban threat as militants advance from their bases in tribal areas into mainstream Pakistan. The Taliban claimed responsibility for two suicide attacks over the weekend that killed eight people, mostly paramilitary soldiers, in Islamabad, and 26 Shia worshipers outside a mosque in Chakwal, in Punjab province.
The Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), which controls Karachi, demanded the public execution of the men involved in the flogging incident. "I urge [the government] to arrest and try them, sentence them to death and keep their bodies hung publicly for as many days as they had flogged the innocent girl," said the party chief, Altaf Hussain, in a statement.
Richard Holbrooke, the US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and the US military chief, Admiral Mike Mullen, are due in Islamabad later today for talks on the growing Taliban threat. They are expected to visit India tomorrow.
Use the feedback form below to submit your comments.
Use the form below to email this article to your friends.
- Pakistan Agrees to Truce with Taliban in Swat Region, Will Impose Islamic Law
- Indo Pak Issues Other Than Kashmir
- Wrong-footed Bush Forced to Rethink Policy on Pakistan
- Pakistan Link to Terror Arrests As Gordon Brown Defends Operation
- Pakistan Region in Grip of Fear As Leader Begins to Implement Sharia Law
- In Pakistan, Us Drone Strike on Taliban Kills 12
- Pakistan Blames Taliban for Lahore Attack Which Leaves 11 Dead
- UK Backs Pakistan Offensive
- Suicide Bomb's Death Toll of 50 Heightens Anti-us Feelings in Pakistan
- Pakistan Identified As Biggest Foreign Policy Test
- Torture at Hands of Pakistan Secret Services
- Pakistan Frees 'father' of Nuclear Bomb After Five-year House Arrest
- Pakistan Releases 'father' of Nuclear Bomb From House Arrest
- Gunmen Kidnap Un Official in Pakistan
- Pakistan Terror Accused Acted in Self-defence, Court Hears
- Pakistan Launches Khyber Pass Offensive to Support Us-led Forces in Afghanistan
- Pakistan Remembers Bhutto As Tension With India Mounts
- The Culture of Pakistan
- Pakistan Leaders Order Assault on US Soldiers
- Marianne Pearl Sues Pakistan Bank for Funding Husband’s Murder
- 8 Militants in Pakistan Killed by Suspected Drone Attack
- Clinton Addresses Kashmir Issue
- Pakistani Elders Advise Clinton
- Market Bomb Welcomes Hillary Clinton in Pakistan
- Suicide Bomber Targets Pakistan Military Complex
- Pakistan Under Attack
- Pakistan Army Plans to Take Down Taliban
- US Aid Bill Opposed by Pakistan Military
- Pakistan’s Army Sends Thousands of Taliban Militants Fleeing
- Chaos in Pakistan as Hundreds of Thousands Flee Fighting
- President Obama Looking for Assurances from Pakistan on Nukes