Pakistani Teen Purportedly Shown in Flogging Video Now Says It Never Happened

A Pakistani teenage girl at the center of national outrage over a video purporting to show her public flogging at the hands of the Taliban now reportedly says the incident never happened.The video, shown last week by Pakistani television and widely posted on the Web, shows the crying 17-year-old girl being held down by a man identified as her brother even as a member of the Taliban beats her.The incident reportedly took place between two and five weeks ago in the Swat Valley village of Kala Killay. The video has sparked nationwide demonstrations challenging the government's decision to allow Sharia law into the Taliban-controlled region.Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani called for an immediate inquiry and condemned the flogging as being contrary to Islamic teachings, which teach men to treat women "politely and gently."Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry — only recently restored to office — said the flogging was cruel and in violation of fundamental human rights, and ordered local officials to conduct an investigation.But the girl, identified as Chand Bibi, reportedly told an Islamic judge and a government commissioner that the incident never happened.The Times of India reported Monday that the girl claimed she was married to the man she was accused of having illicit relations with, and that reports that both of them were flogged by the Taliban and forced to marry were untrue."She requested the judge and the commissioner to spare her from appearing in the court in Islamabad," provincial information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain told local media, the Times reported.Hussain claimed the video was a fake that was distributed to disrupt the peace process in the region."We condemn the acts of repression against women. ... But the incident depicted in the videotape never took place in Swat," he said.Pakistani officials had no comment Monday on the girl's claims, a day after thousands of women turned out across the country to protest her alleged treatment.But a spokesman for the Pakistani Embassy in Washington said the government is investigating "The people of Pakistan were outraged by this video and there are many questions: if this has been manufactured by some groups of vested interest, or if it is real. And so investigations are still going on," said Nadeem Kiani, press attache for the embassy."On the face of it people are outraged, the government has condemned this and shown their resolve that they would never allow this thing to happen in Pakistan at any cost."Kiani, who said the act of public violence against women was "unheard of" in Pakistani.The government will take "all possible steps so that ... no incident of violence takes place against women anywhere in Pakistan, may it be Swat or Islamabad or Lahore."Meanwhile, the man who videotaped the flogging told Pakistan's Dawn News that the girl was being punished for refusing a marriage proposal from a Taliban militant.