Video of beating helps turn Pakistanis against Taliban

Journal Staff and Wire Report

Published: June 12, 2009

ISLAMABAD -- The footage was chilling: A woman crying out in pain, held face-down on the ground, as a man with a long beard flogged her in front of a crowd. It could be the video that changed Pakistan.

That two-minute clip, purportedly shot in the Swat Valley where the Taliban held sway until a recent military offensive, has come to represent the militants and their extreme form of Islam. The circumstances of the beating are murky, no one is sure where exactly it happened, and the woman's identity remains unclear more than two months after the whipping was shown repeatedly on TV.

No matter. She remains irrevocably linked with the Taliban, an instant icon that the government has used to ask Pakistanis if this is what they want for their country.

The answer from many seems to be no. There are no scientific polls, but in informal interviews by The Associated Press with more than 30 Pakistanis across the country Wednesday and yesterday, not a single person expressed sympathy or allegiance toward the Taliban. The most common answer was the militants should be hunted down and killed.