A video showing a teenage girl being flogged by Taliban fighters has emerged from the Swat Valley, offering a shocking glimpse of militant brutality in the once-peaceful district.
The two-minute video, shot using a mobile phone, shows a burqa-clad woman face down on the ground. Two men hold her arms and feet while a third, a black-turbaned fighter with a flowing beard, whips her repeatedly, reports timesonline.co.uk.
“Please stop it,” she begs, alternately whimpering or screaming in pain with each blow to the backside. “Either kill me or stop it now.”
A crowd of men stands by, watching silently. Off camera a voice issues instructions. “Hold her legs tightly,” he says as she squirms and yelps. After 34 lashes the punishment stops and the wailing woman is led into a stone building, trailed by a Kalashnikov-carrying militant.
Reached by phone, Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan claimed responsibility for the flogging. “She came out of her house with another guy who was not her husband, so we must punish her. There are boundaries you cannot cross,” he said. He defended the Taliban’s right to thrash women shoppers who were inappropriately dressed, saying it was permitted under Islamic law.
The website received the video through Samar Minallah, a Pashtun documentary-maker and anthropologist who lived in Swat for two years in the late 1990s. It has been passed between Swat residents by mobile phones.
Source: The Nation
Date:4/3/2009
Daughter of Sindh returns from UK, but not alive
By Mohammad Hussain Khan
HYDERABAD: The cremation of Dr Sorath Lohano – an activist of the World Sindhi Congress (WSC) – was performed at a Shamshan Ghat off Kali Road here on Thursday by sobbing relatives and friends.
According to her family, Ms Sorath died in an accident at Knebworth railway station in London on March 26 when she was hit by a non-stop speedy train.
Earlier in the day, her body was brought to Karachi from London in an aeroplane and then taken to Hyderabad.
Her father and brothers accompanied the body which was first taken to the house of her mother Kamla in Happy Homes where the grieving family stayed for around three hours.
Then the body was taken to the house of Ms Sorath’s brother in Abdullah Town, Qasimabad, for last rites. During cremation, a national song was sung by participants.
The 27-year old Dr Sortah worked for a reputed pharmacist company after she did her masters in pharmacy from King College University, London, three years ago.
Born in Mirpur Bathoro, Thatta district, she studied there up to grade-II and then shifted to Hyderabad along with her family where she stayed until she was seven. Then she shifted to London where she completed her education. Her father Dr Lakhu Lohano is secretary-general of the World Sindhi Congress.
She had been working at the WSC office in London as a receptionist and organising events held to project Sindh’s case in London.
“She was too young to die. She was selfless and unmarried”, her father told Dawn. He said that the WSC was like her family and she loved to help people.
Her father’s friends – including Dr Qadir Bux Jatoi, who spent a major part of his life in exile in United Kingdom after having to leave Pakistan during Gen Zia’s martial law, Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz secretary-general Dr Safdar Sarki,, nationalist leader Asif Baladi, Dr Abdul Hameed Memon of the Sindh Taraqqi Pasand Party, Taj Joyo, Punhal Sario, Riaz Chandio and Dr Mir Alam Mari – attended the last rites.
Dr Jatoi recalled Dr Sorath’s involvement in programmes organised in the UK by the WSC. He said that her death had produced a vacuum in Sindh’s society which was hard to be filled.
Dr Memon said that that she was unlike other ordinary girls. She had a vision, he said.
Dr Sarki said that she was the incarnation of Shah Latif’s character, Sorath, after whom she was named, and added that she justified her name with her character. He said that she did not have passion for worldly things which reflected in her everyday life that was different from modern lifestyle of women.
Mr Baladi – one of the missing persons of Sindh after having been picked up by an intelligence agency – said that she was an example for Sindhi girls and expressed the hope that women would try to emulate her.
Source: Dawn
Date:4/3/2009
NGOs infighting stalls hearing of Dr Aafia’s case
KARACHI: Dr Aafia Siddiqui’s repatriation case could not be heard in the Sindh High Court on Thursday because of infighting among the petitioner non-governmental organisations.
Three NGOs have filed petitions challenging Dr Aafia’s continued incarceration and prosecution in the United States in spite of her failing health and alleged innocence inferred from the circumstances of the case. The first to approach the court was ‘Human Rights Network’ of Intikhab Alam Suri. Dr Aafia’s sister, Ms Fauzia Siddiqui, attended one of the hearings.
An equally little known ‘Amity International’ is the second petitioner. The latest addition to the list of petitioners is Advocate Nisar A. Mujahid’s Human Rights and Civil Liberties Society.
The last petition was heard by a division bench consisting of Chief Justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali and Justice Karim Khan Agha on March 24 and it called for comments from the respondent federal government by April 15. At the petitioner’s request, the bench also ordered that other petitions on the subject to be tagged together for a consolidated hearing.
Mr Suri, meanwhile, moved an urgent application for the hearing of his petition. The respondent ministry has already submitted its comments in the petition, saying that efforts were being made for Dr Aafia’s repatriation. The application could not be heard on Wednesday and was taken up be a division bench comprising Justices Gulzar Ahmed and Malik Muhammad Aqil after court hours in chamber on Thursday.
Claiming to represent the other two petitioner NGOs, Advocate Mujahid informed the bench that one of the petitions could not be heard out of turn as all petitions were fixed for April 15. After looking into the record, the bench asked Mr Suri to seek an amendment in the March 24 order if he wanted early hearing of his petition.
Dr Aafia’s mother, Mst Tasneem Siddiqui has, meanwhile, moved the Islamabad High Court for the same relief and the court had sought comments from the ministries concerned.
Source: Dawn
Date:4/3/2009