• Listen to this segment

• Listen to the entire program

The newly reinstated chief justice of Pakistan, Iftikaar Muhammad Chaudhry, has ordered an investigation into the recent flogging of a 17 year old girl by the Taliban in the Swat Valley. The public flogging which apparently happened in February, was videotaped and can now be found on Youtube. It has sparked outrage among Pakistani human and women’s rights groups and internationally as well. According to the BBC, the girl was accused of “illicit relations with a man,” and that the man involved was also flogged, and said that he simply came to the girl’s house to do some electrical repairs. The Taliban forced the two to marry and instructed the man not to divorce his wife. Earlier this year the Pakistani government made a deal with the Taliban in the former ski resort of Swat Valley, to implement Islamic Sharia law in exchange for a ceasefire. Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, a new law aimed at the minority Shia community has also sparked outrage: the law was quickly passed and signed by President Hamid Karzai and requires, among other things, married women to have sex with their husbands on demand, and not leave their homes unescorted. The law is reminiscent of the controversial edicts enforced by the Taliban and denounced by human rights groups internationally. Karzai has justified the the law saying there was a misunderstanding based on bad translation. But he is thought to be simply using the law to appease his base among the fundamentalist, mostly Shia warlords dominating the parliament as he faces re-election this summer.

GUESTS: Farooq Sulehria, member of the Pakistan Labor Party, Sahar Saba, member of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)