(From this free spanking gallery)

From Harper’s magazine, March 2004:

From interviews with Iranian brothel workers conducted by Roya Karimi-Majd forZanan, a women’s magazine published in Teheran…. Translated from the Farsi.

When I was in the fourth grade my mother died, and my father died when I was sixteen. My older brother took the other eight of us to Teheran to live with our half brother and his family in a couple of tiny rooms he rented in the Islamshahr district.

A couple of days after we arrived, I befriended a girl at the vegetable market. I went to her house, and she lent me a beautiful overcoat of hers to wear to the store. When we went out, everyone was staring at me—I had become pretty. That night my half brother, who worked in the same area, came home, ate dinner, and then beat me. He kept saying, “Two days you’ve been in Teheran and you’ve been corrupted! What were you wearing? You’ve ruined my reputation!”…

I was in so much pain that I couldn’t sleep. When the morning call to prayer sounded, I ran away. I said to myself, “I’ll go find my mother’s sister. I’ll go back to my hometown. I’ll find a husband and be free from all of them.” It was nighttime when I got to the southern bus terminal, and the tickets were sold out. I didn’t have much money, so I went into the bathroom, where a few other girls were sleeping.

I had just started to fall asleep when a loud sound awakened me. The religious police were conducting a raid, and they took us all to the police station. From there we were sent to court. I couldn’t understand a word of what the judge was saying. I was sleepy. I wanted to tell him what had happened, but I couldn’t. In the end he gave me a sentence: eighty lashes and a 30,000 toman fine [thirty-five dollars].

When they whipped me, it hurt… At first, I screamed out loud. Then I just bit down hard on the edge of my chador. I was an idiot. I was only sixteen years old. I was locked up for three months. I actually missed my half brother’s beatings.

A Gulf Times report from Qatar on 2 July 2006:

A 32-year-old Filipina housemaid was found guilty on Thursday of illicit relations and sentenced to 100 lashes and immediate deportation. While denying the charge of illicit relations, she admitted that she was the mother of a three-month-old baby.

According to her sponsor, he reported the matter to the police after he found a baby in her room last April. “She told me that the baby belonged to another Filipina maid who left Doha a few days earlier.”…

However, the maid told the police that she allowed her boyfriend into the house “many times”. She said the “father” of the child is now in the Philippines waiting for her to join him so that they can get married.

(From this free punishment gallery)

From BOPA, the Botswanan news agency on 19 Feb:

Now, a new disorder is taking route in the once envied district of Bakgatla-ba-ga-Kgafela. A series of beatings of innocent people… have taken root. According to the police, four cases of innocent beatings have been reported to them even though the victims are not willing to pursue the cases further…

Not even women are spared the rod. The police have confirmed that a woman was recently flogged on her bare buttocks by Madisakgosi and like the men folks, is not willing to go the court route.

Rewind all these to a public humiliation of a drama group that scooped number one through their play only for the actors to be lashed for portraying bogwera and bojale in an edutainment piece.

Kgosi Sekai Linchwe has gone on record stating that the flogging will continue for some time to come. He said bogosi has taken a stand to whip anyone, regardless of age, who commits any minor offence in the village.

From The Frontier Post on 19 February:

Officials and human right activists in western Ghor province have strongly condemned the public flogging of two women as an unlawful and immoral act. Governor’s office spokesman Abdul Hai Khatibi said the two women who were forcibly married in Dolina district ran away from their husbands’ houses a month back.

Police arrested the two in Chasht district of neighboring Herat province while wearing men’s dresses. The women were then handed over to their respective families by the police, said the gubernatorial spokesman.

In light of a decree issued by local clerics, Khatibi said, the two women were subjected to 45 lashes each in public. “This punishment was allowed by former local commanders and scholars,” he said. The Dolina district is a haven of illegal armed groups, who impose such brutal and unethical verdicts on people, he added…

Deputy Dolina police chief 1st corporal Jahan Shah said the two women were punished by a former jihadi commander named Fazl Ahad… This reporter could not reach Fazl Ahad for his comments. Acting high court chief in Ghor Attaullah Tamkin said any decision made outside the court was illegal. He said those responsible for the flogging were criminals and should be arrested and tried.