Officials deny women executed for dancing

Tribal leaders denied reports that five women, including four pictured singing and dancing with men at a wedding party in Kohistan, Pakistan, were executed.

Two officials said the women were alive and safe in their homes and denied that a jirga -- a tribal assembly of elders -- had sentenced the women to death, the Express Tribune reported Sunday.

Muhammad Afzal, a brother of two men accused of shooting a video of the dancing women and posting it on the Internet, said they were executed May 30 along with a sister of one of them.

Police officials in the area also denied there were executions.

A judge scheduled a hearing into the matter for Wednesday and noted that Pakistan's Supreme Court has determined verdicts issued by private jirgas are illegal, Dawn News reported Sunday. The judge also directed that the women, if alive, should be made available for the hearing.

Afzal said all five women were executed by their relatives, Dawn News reported.

He said the women were held captive for a month and tortured before they were killed.

Media outlets last week said the jirga also ordered the execution of Afzal's two brothers, Bin Yasir and Gul Nazar, along with the women in the video, but the men had fled the area.

The Express Tribune said police filed the documents necessary to begin an investigation of the brothers.

<관련 한글 기사>

경악! 춤추고 노래했다고 처형 당하다니…

파키스탄에서 네 여성이 춤추고 노래했다는 이유로 처형당했다는 보도가 나와 논란이 일고 있다.

현지 보도에 따르면 네 명의 여성이 파키스탄의 코히스탄 지방에서 열린 한 결혼식에서 다른 남성들과 함께 축하연을 즐겼다는 이유로 부족 원로회에 의해 처형을 선고 받았다고 한다.

여성들이 축제를 즐기는 장면을 인터넷에 올린 남자의 형인 무하메드 아프잘은 그들이 지난달 30일(현지시간) 처형당했다고 말했다.

그러나 여성들이 속한 부족의 지도자들은 사형선고를 내린 바가 없으며 여성들이 살아있다고 주장했다.

이에 파키스탄 대법원은 진상을 규명하기 위해 해당 지역에 인원을 파견했다고 BBC방송은 6일 보도했다.