<p>Girls now go to school in this mountain town and the military patrols keep security. <br />But Saira Bibi’s eyes still flash with pain and anger through the small gap in her veil as she recounts how the Taliban who once ruled here dragged her from home and flogged her in front of her neighbours.<br /><br />It didn’t matter that she always wore a body-covering burqa, nor that she rarely left her mud-brick home. It didn’t matter that her conservative in-laws scoffed at the accusation she was an adulterer. <br /><br />To the Islamist extremists who had taken over her tiny town above Pakistan’s Swat Valley, a rumour was enough.<br /><br />“They came and took me to the school, where 150 or 200 people had been gathered. They pushed me to the ground and hit me 15 times,” says Bibi, 30, holding her one-year-old son. Her right hand fidgets under the fabric as she recalls her humiliation nearly two years ago.<br /><br />Bibi is one of the first women to openly speak about being publicly punished during the Pakistani Taliban’s rule over this resort area. Her tale is a painful reminder of how Swat’s conservative, ethnic Pashtun culture descended into harsh theocratic rule that banned girls from school, women from markets and executed anyone who resisted.<br /><br />An iconic video of a flogging much like Bibi describes helped galvanise Pakistani public support for last year’s army offensive that finally drove the Taliban out of the Swat Valley. <br /><br />More than a year since the offensive, life is starting to resemble normal in Swat. <br /><br />Schoolgirls again flock giggling on the streets of the main city, Mingora. Veiled women shop for food and clothes. Most of the two million who fled Taliban oppression and the fighting to oust them have returned.<br /><br />But not everything is as it was. Soldiers now stand on street corners and at checkpoints. <br /><br />Some 300 schools the Taliban burned in the region have not yet been rebuilt. Occasional attacks remind residents that militancy is still a threat.<br /><br />The Taliban takeover of Swat, which was near-total by 2008, came as a shock to many Pakistanis accustomed to thinking of the militants as far away, a mostly Afghan movement fighting American troops across the border.<br /><br />Many in the area were initially supportive when Swat Taliban leader Mullah Fazlullah began preaching hard-line Islam over local radio. Some women even donated their jewelry to the cause. But over the months, armed men started roaming through the area, meting out harsh punishment for anyone who opposed them and driving out local authorities.<br /><br />Bibi was one of dozens of women who fell victim to the militants’ zeal. On the porch of the couple’s tiny dirt-floor home, Bibi and her husband, Fazal-e-Azim, say a vindictive cousin spread the false rumour she was unfaithful while Azim was working in another city. Punishment was swift, even though Azim’s own family argued her innocence.<br /><br />With the military now in control, the army has made efforts to improve lives of women in Swat.</p>
<p>Girls now go to school in this mountain town and the military patrols keep security. <br />But Saira Bibi’s eyes still flash with pain and anger through the small gap in her veil as she recounts how the Taliban who once ruled here dragged her from home and flogged her in front of her neighbours.<br /><br />It didn’t matter that she always wore a body-covering burqa, nor that she rarely left her mud-brick home. It didn’t matter that her conservative in-laws scoffed at the accusation she was an adulterer. <br /><br />To the Islamist extremists who had taken over her tiny town above Pakistan’s Swat Valley, a rumour was enough.<br /><br />“They came and took me to the school, where 150 or 200 people had been gathered. They pushed me to the ground and hit me 15 times,” says Bibi, 30, holding her one-year-old son. Her right hand fidgets under the fabric as she recalls her humiliation nearly two years ago.<br /><br />Bibi is one of the first women to openly speak about being publicly punished during the Pakistani Taliban’s rule over this resort area. Her tale is a painful reminder of how Swat’s conservative, ethnic Pashtun culture descended into harsh theocratic rule that banned girls from school, women from markets and executed anyone who resisted.<br /><br />An iconic video of a flogging much like Bibi describes helped galvanise Pakistani public support for last year’s army offensive that finally drove the Taliban out of the Swat Valley. <br /><br />More than a year since the offensive, life is starting to resemble normal in Swat. <br /><br />Schoolgirls again flock giggling on the streets of the main city, Mingora. Veiled women shop for food and clothes. Most of the two million who fled Taliban oppression and the fighting to oust them have returned.<br /><br />But not everything is as it was. Soldiers now stand on street corners and at checkpoints. <br /><br />Some 300 schools the Taliban burned in the region have not yet been rebuilt. Occasional attacks remind residents that militancy is still a threat.<br /><br />The Taliban takeover of Swat, which was near-total by 2008, came as a shock to many Pakistanis accustomed to thinking of the militants as far away, a mostly Afghan movement fighting American troops across the border.<br /><br />Many in the area were initially supportive when Swat Taliban leader Mullah Fazlullah began preaching hard-line Islam over local radio. Some women even donated their jewelry to the cause. But over the months, armed men started roaming through the area, meting out harsh punishment for anyone who opposed them and driving out local authorities.<br /><br />Bibi was one of dozens of women who fell victim to the militants’ zeal. On the porch of the couple’s tiny dirt-floor home, Bibi and her husband, Fazal-e-Azim, say a vindictive cousin spread the false rumour she was unfaithful while Azim was working in another city. Punishment was swift, even though Azim’s own family argued her innocence.<br /><br />With the military now in control, the army has made efforts to improve lives of women in Swat.</p>
