The Curious Case of the Allegedly Fake Flogging Video

So, in the last few days, I was confronted by people who claimed that the infamous flogging video from Swat - you know, the one in which a burqa clad woman is held down by some bearded men while being publicly flogged and which caused immense disgust across Pakistan and the world exactly one year ago - had now been proved to be fake. Since I was clueless about any such news, they proceeded to inform me that not only had The News conclusively reported that the video was faked by an NGO (ostensibly to defame Pakistan and the righteous Muslims of Swat as well as to make it easier for the army to gather public opinion on its side for an operation against the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan or TTP), but that even Kamran Khan had talked about the fakery on his programme on Geo.

I had to do a bit of searching to find the 'news item' referred to. There was a reason I had not seen it: it never appeared in the print edition of the Karachi paper (the one I get). I'm not sure if it actually appeared in the Islamabad and Lahore editions, but surprisingly, it was on the web - even though the web edition of The News is actually culled from the Karachi edition. Here is what the 'news item' was, in its entirety:

Video of girl’s flogging in Swat was ‘fake’

Monday, March 29, 2010

"PESHAWAR: A resident of Swat, who claims to have prepared the fake video of flogging of a girl in Swat, has termed it drama and revealed that he received Rs0.5 million for doing so before the launch of military operation ‘Rah-e-Rast’.

Before the operation ‘Rah-e-Rast’, an NGO financed preparation of fake video of flogging in which they portrayed the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) members flogging a woman. The provincial government and Malakand Commissioner Syed Muhammad Javed ordered investigations and sought report from the authorities concerned.

After the successful operation in Malakand division, the law-enforcement agencies had arrested the children who were present in the video while a resident of Swat was apprehended by Kohat administration. The children and the arrested man revealed that the video was fake and said that it was made on the demand of Islamabad-based NGO which provided him Rs0.5 million.

Sources revealed that woman who was flogged in the video was also arrested and she revealed that she had received Rs0.1 million while Rs50,000 were given to each child. Sources said that the NGO produced the video to defame the country’s integrity and respect.

Sources stated that the law-enforcement agencies dispatched the report about the arrests of the culprits and proposed action against the NGO. They also said that the security agencies also apprehended the TTP workers who flogged the people."

Now, there are a couple or three points to note in this report, which should be glaringly obvious to any half-decent reporter or editor.

1. There is no byline.

2. The 'sources' are all anonymous.

3. Even the 'resident of Swat' who makes these serious claims is not identified.

These, ladies and gentlemen, are all straightforward clues that the 'report' is what is known in Pakistani journalistic parlance, as a 'plant' or 'planted story.' Obviously, at least one news editor came to the same conclusion and decided NOT to carry the story (i.e. the Karachi edition), which should give us some indication of how seriously it was taken. Now, who planted the story, how it was managed and with what motives, is up to you to judge. But there is no iota of doubt in my mind that the story deserved to be killed, at least until some serious questions were asked about its sources and credibility.

Of course, that has not stopped the assorted nutjobs going ballistic on various net forums about conspiracy theories involving the West, RAW, the army, NGOs and Westernized liberals. You can see a sample of their frothing at the mouth on Teeth Maestro's blog here and the Pakistan Defence Forum blog here. You may recall that the Supreme Commander of the Nutjobs, Aamir Liaquat Hussain, had even at the time of the surfacing of the video attempted to discredit the video on his show and in his Jang columns, while weasels like Ansar Abbasi  had simultaneously attempted to justify the barbarism (God, I'd almost forgotten why the man makes my blood boil!).

Just to remind ourselves of the actual circumstances of the case at the the time (rather than the planted stories appearing now), you can read what Dawn had reported on 4 April 2009 via DawnNews, or take a look at TTP spokesman Muslim Khan accepting responsibility for the flogging here:





Small wonder, then, that human rights campaigner and filmmaker Samar Minallah, who helped to publicise the video in the media, has reacted with a blistering and eloquent rejoinder in the oped pages of The News and The Daily Times. After all, the planted story was squarely targeted at her. You really should read her piece fully. But what is really needed is for The News to issue a clarification about the unsourced report. If it stands by its story, it should tell us what its sources are. If not, it should issue an apology, not only to Samar Minallah but to all its readers. It's about time there was some accountability for the media too.

On Vigilante 'Justice'

The media catchphrase of the last couple of days: "Chhitrol" (flogging). This, of course, after rather explicit footage first emerged from Chiniot, of policemen stripping arrested men and giving them some heavy duty spanking in full public view. After this footage was broadcast on almost all television channels (Express I think had it almost a day before others), more footage of similar such incidents was sent in by various people from all over Punjab. Geo took the lead in running as many as it could find, most of them sent in by viewers who probably recorded it on their cell phones. I counted at least five new bits of footage tonight.

Of course, the footage was accompanied by some requisite hue and cry over the blatant abuse of human rights (it is!) and the process of law due to the accused, a number of policemen were suspended, some fiery vows were made to prosecute the errant policemen under the anti-terrorism act, and even one PMLN MPA was implicated in allegedly condoning the barbaric acts. But perhaps the most telling aspect of the whole scenario was a news report carried by Aaj TV, in which average people asked about the issue in one town Jalalpur Bhattian unanimously defended the policemen as having done the right thing. The people interviewed claimed that the men flogged in public view were apprehended red-handed by local residents while committing a dacoity and deserved everything they got and that they, the members of the public, had, in fact, demanded it of the police. It would do well to remember that in many of the footages shown, there are crowds of people observing the floggings.

This, to me, is the crux of the issue. Remember at least two instances in Karachi in the recent past where robbers caught by local residents were beaten and set alight before the police could even arrive? Remember the support in the North-West and FATA regions for the Taliban brand of brutal and quick "justice"? I am not in the least trying to justify what is ultimately barbarism but there is a pattern here.

What motivates normal, law-abiding citizens to take the law in their own hands, or approve of authority meting out on-the-spot punishments, without trial or opportunity of defence to the accused? Is it a lack of awareness of the benefits for everyone of due process? Is it some inculcated respect for fascism? Is it fear that if such pressure is not exerted by the public, crooked policemen will collude with criminals? Or is it resignation that the corruption and bureaucracy of the legal system will see real culprits go scot free?

It could, in fact, be a combination, of all these things. But whatever it is, this is what needs really to be addressed. When the average citizen sees nothing wrong in vigilante "justice", no amount of fiery rhetoric and punishment of policemen is going to solve the problem.

On a slightly different tangent but taking the chhitrol footage as a peg, Mubasher Lucman - usually a blowhard host I am not very fond of - conducted an excellent and probably the most restrained programme tonight about extra-judicial killings, with some really shocking and damning footage. The last time I saw such clear documentation of blatant extra-judicial murders was in the 1990s when the Herald and Newsline investigated the same issue in Karachi (except, of course, Lucman had actual before-the-act video footage and photographs which are far more damning). Curiously, instances of summarily knocking off alleged criminals in faked "police encounters" seem to pick up in the Punjab every time populist Shahbaz Sharif is in power, which may reinforce what I was speculating about earlier.

In any case, here are clips from Point Blank hosted by Mubasher Lucman on Express TV: