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Video shows Taliban allegedly stoning Pakistan woman

27 September 2010 20:20 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Turbaned men in Pakistan gather around a woman with a black hood over her head, pick up large rocks and repeatedly throw them at her until she lies motionless, stretched along the ground, a video purports, APA reports quoting â€œReutersâ€.
A Dubai-based television station which released the footage said the stoning was carried out in northwest Pakistan, apparently by Taliban militants, incensed because she was seen out with a man.
The footage is a stark reminder that despite a series of military offensives the army said had weakened insurgents, militants still control areas of the northwest and impose their harsh version of Islam at will.
Dubai’s Al Aan television, which focuses on women’s issues in the Arab world, said it got the tape from its sources and that it took place in Orakzai agency in northwest Pakistan. It said it had other footage of a man who was executed by shooting, possibly the one the woman was seen with.
It was not possible to verify its authenticity or when it was filmed.
Such videos aren’t unique. Last year Pakistanis were outraged after footage widely aired on television showed militants in the northwest Swat Valley publicly flogging a teenage girl accused of having an affair.
The government had virtually ceded control of Swat to militants under a deal to end fighting there and some Pakistanis, disillusioned with a police and judiciary critics say are corrupt and ineffective, initially welcomed the Taliban in the former tourist resort.
That video greatly undermined any public support the Taliban had in Pakistan, and this one, with its stark brutality, could further sour public opinion against the al Qaeda-linked Taliban fighters waging a campaign of suicide bombings which have killed civilians, police, security forces and soldiers.
Militants have also blown up hundreds of girls’ schools.
The Taliban were driven out of Swat but authorities say they are trying to return, something many residents fear.
Stonings occur elsewhere, too. This month Iranian authorities suspended the planned stoning execution of a woman convicted of adultery -- the only crime which carries the death penalty by stoning under Islamic Sharia law -- after the case drew weeks of condemnation from around the world.
A stoning in Afghanistan also drew attention to the practice, a slow form of execution.
In August in Afghanistan, a couple was executed for adultery, drawing condemnation from Amnesty International. It was the first known Taliban executions by stoning carried out in Afghanistan since 2001.