Pakistani girl takes on the Taliban with her pen

Sikh families leave Orakzai after Taliban demand jizia

As the rule of Islam spread beyond the borders of Arabias, Muslim rulers found it impossible either to convert the entire population or to exterminate the whole. The solution was found by admitting the non-Muslims to the status of Zimmis. Zimmis are those non-Muslims whose life is held under a contract. Jizia tax(a capitation tax/head tax imposed on free non-Muslims living under Muslim rule) used to be imposed on non-Muslims as a punishment for their unbelief and in order to humiliate themJizia tax is back.Now this Jizia tax is back into action.

HANGU: Sikh families living in Orakzai Agency (Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan) have left the agency after the Taliban demanded Rs 50 million as jizia (tax) from them, official sources and locals said on Tuesday.

Residents of Ferozekhel area in Lower Orakzai Agency told Daily Times on Tuesday that around 10 Sikh families left the agency after the demand by the Taliban, who said they were a minority and liable to pay the tax for living in the area in accordance with sharia.

Locals said the Taliban had notified the Sikh families about the ‘tax’ around a week ago. They said of the 15 Sikh families in Ferozekhel, 10 had shifted while the remaining were preparing to do so.

The locals said the families were impoverished and had left the area to avoid any Taliban action.
Daily Times

Taliban publicly whipped a girl in Swat

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A 17-year-old screaming, burqa-clad girl was whipped by Taliban fighters in Pakistan's Swat Valley for coming "out of her house with another guy who was not her husband", a two-minute video shot through a mobile phone showed. The video showed the girl face down on the ground. Two men held her arms and feet while a third, a black-turbaned fighter with a flowing beard, whipped her repeatedly.



“Please! Enough! Enough” the girl is heard crying. "Please stop it," the girl begged repeatedly. "Either kill me or stop it now." After 34 lashes the punishment stopped and the wailing girl was led into a stone building.

What is her crime??According to local reporters the girl was whipped because she came out of her house with a man who was not her husband. But some residents have revealed a local Taliban commander ordered the beating to get revenge after the girl refused to accept his proposal of marriage.

Pakistan government ceded authority of Swat valley to the Taliban under a peace deal(?), giving them almost a free hand to impose their puritan Islamic rule on the around 600,000 people of Swat and its seven neighbouring districts.

Pakistani lawmaker defends burying women alive

Five Pakistani women were beaten, shot and buried alive in the tribal region of Baluchistan on July 13 of this year. What was more shocking was the subsequent defence of these ‘honour’ killings from certain members of the Pakistan Senate.

Women's groups have expressed outrage over the killings

Israr Ullah Zehri, who represents province where the women died, told a stunned parliament that tribesmen had done nothing wrong in first shooting the women and then dumping them in a ditch."These are centuries-old traditions, and I will continue to defend them,.Only those who indulge in immoral acts should be afraid." he said.

The women, three of whom were teenagers, were first shot and then thrown into a ditchin what was a brutal episode of honour killing.They were still breathing as mud was shoveled over their bodies, according to media reports, which said their only "crime" was that they wished to marry men of their own choice, against the wishes of tribal elders.

According to details, the women were about to leave for the civil court so that the three girls could marry the men of their choice. Their decision to get married in court was the result of several days of discussions with the elders of the tribe who refused them permission to marry. As the news of their plans leaked out, a group of men abducted them at gun point. and taken in a vehicle to another remote area,. After reaching there, the men took the three younger women out of the jeep and beat them before allegedly opening fire on them. The girls were seriously injured but were miraculously still alive at that moment. They were hurled into a wide ditch and later covered with earth and stones. The two older women - an aunt of one of these girls and the other, the mother of one minor - when protested and tried to stop the burial of the girls who were still alive-further enraged the attackers. They were so angry at the interference that they pushed the elderly women in the ditch along with the injured girls and buried them alive too. After completing the burial, they fired several shots in the air so that no one would come close.

It is considered an insult in some conservative regions of Pakistan for women to have affairs or marry without consent, and rights groups say hundreds are killed by male relatives every year.Reaction of Dr Farzana Bari, a university professor and a human rights activist from Islamabad who is leading the outcry against these crimes:

Desire to control women’s lives and their sexuality is far greater in areas where feudal and tribal systems are prevalent. For example, you will not find the same oppression of women in Islamabad, Karachi or Lahore. But where there is a strong tribal or feudal hold you see that women’s sexuality is strictly controlled by the family – and particularly the male members of the family.

Pakistani Police Women