Foot whipping

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Bastinado, demonstration of foot caning

Foot whipping describes a form of corporal punishment by beating the soles of the feet. A common technical term is bastinado.

The undergoing person is required to be barefoot. The beating is typically inflicted with an object in the type of a cane or a crop and repeated over a varying number of times. It is usually targeted at the vaults or arches of the foot but sometimes the heels and balls of the feet can be targeted also.

It is also referred to as foot (bottom) caning or sole caning. The particular Middle East method is called falaka or falanga, derivative from the Greek term phalanx. The German term is Bastonade, deriving from the Italian noun bastonata (stroke with the use of a stick), in former centuries it was also referred to as Sohlenstreich (corr. striking the soles). The Chinese term is jiao xing.

The first documentation of bastinado in Europe dates back to the year 1537, in China to 960. References to bastinado are found in the Bible (Prov. 22:15; Lev. 19:20; Deut. 22:18), suggesting the practice since antiquity.

Bastinado is usually associated with Middle and Far Eastern nations, where it is occasionally executed in public and therefore covered by reports and photographs. However it has been practised within prisons, reformatories, boarding schools and similar institutions in Western countries as well.

In Europe bastinado was a common form of corporal punishment particularly in German areas, where it was routinely carried out to enforce discipline within penal and reformatory institutions, at this used extensively during the Nazi-Regime. In several German and Austrian institutions it was still practised during the 1950s. Although bastinado has been common practice within Western penal institutions, it is usually neglected as it was not directly adjudged for criminal acts, but typically performed to sanction infractions or misconduct in different custody situations. Also the practice of foot whipping appears not as spectacular as other methods of corporal punishment and was not performed publicly so it usually came to be witnessed only by the persons immediately involved.

To this day bastinado is used for punishment of prisoners in several countries (see below). As it causes a high level of pain for the receiving person while physical evidence remains practically undetectable, it is often used for interrogations and torture in oppressive regimes as well.

Appearances

Bastinado has been and is still practised in many situations, where individuals are subjected to an authoritative right of corporal punishment. This subform of flagellation is hereby especially prevalent where the respective individuals have to remain barefoot by design, such as situations of imprisonment in several modern countries and of incarceration and slavery in past times.

Regional

Foot whipping in a Syrian prison, exhibit from Amna Sur Museum, Sulaymaniyah

Foot whipping was a routine practice to perform disciplinary corporal punishment in different kinds of institutions throughout Central Europe until the 1950s, especially in German territories. During the German Nazi-regime it was increasingly used within penal institutions and labor camps. It was also employed in occupied territories against the native population, cases are reported from Denmark and Norway.

During the era of slavery in Brazil and the American South it was often inflicted whenever so-called "clean beating" was indicated. This was the case when a possible loss in marketable value by visible injuries through whipping was to be avoided. As slave-codes often forced slaves to remain barefoot uniformly, bastinado could be employed with minimal effort. As it was as effective but usually left no visible injuries, bastinado was often used as an alternative for female slaves with higher marketable value.

Bastinado has been and is still practised in prisons of several countries around the world. In a 1967 survey 83% of the inmates in Greek prisons reported about frequent infliction of bastinado. It was also used against rioting students. In Spanish prisons 39% of the inmates reported about this kind of treatment. The French Sûreté reportedly used it to extract confessions. British occupants used it in Palestine, French occupants in Algeria. Within colonial India it was used to punish tax offenders. Within penal institutions in Europe bastinado was reportedly used in Germany, Austria, France, Spain, Greece, Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Portugal, Macedonia, Lithuania, Georgia, Ukraine, Cyprus, Slovakia and Croatia. Other nations with documented use of bastinado are Syria, Israel, Turkey, Morocco, Iran, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, Lebanon, Tunisia, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Brazil, Argentina, Nicaragua, Chile, South Africa, Venezuela, Rhodesia, Zimbabwe, Paraguay, Honduras, Bolivia, Ethiopia, Somalia, Kenya, Cameroon, Mauritius, Philippines, South Korea, Pakistan and Nepal.

In history

Foot whipping an offender (falaka), Iran, 1920s

• In the United States corporal punishment through foot whipping is reported from juvenile penal institutions until 1969, as for example in Massachusetts.
• Foot whipping was practised in juvenile institutions and protectories in Austria until the 1960s.
• In Nazi Germany bastinado was administered in women's penitentiaries and penal camps, where female prisoners were often kept barefoot. During that period of time this form of punishment was also regularly used in juvenile institutions in German territories.
• British colonial police officer Charles Tegart is said to have instituted foot whipping, a practice derived from the former Ottoman rule, in an interrogation centre established at Jerusalem in 1938, as part of the effort to crush the 1936–39 Arab revolt in Palestine.
• Foot whipping was used by Fascist Blackshirts against Freemasons critical of Benito Mussolini as early as 1923 (Dalzell, 1961).
• It was used as a method of torture during the Greek Civil War of 1946 to 1949 and the regime of the Colonels in Greece, from 1967 to 1974.
• Applied by Soviet Union to Vsevolod Meyerhold in 1939.
• It was reported that Russian prisoners of war were "bastinadoed' at Afion camp by their Turkish captors during World War I. However British prisoners escaped this treatment.
• Foot whipping was, among other methods, used as a method of obtaining confession from alleged political criminals during the communist regime of Czechoslovakia
• Bahá'u'lláh (founder of the Bahá'í Faith) underwent foot whipping in August 1852 as a follower of the Babi religion. (Esslemont, 1937).
• It was used throughout the Ottoman Empire.
• Foot whipping was used at the S-21 prison in Phnom Penh during the rule of the Khmer Rouge and is mentioned in the ten regulations to prisoners now on display in the Tuol Sleng Genocide Museum.
• This punishment has, at various times, been used in China, as well as the Middle East.

Modern era

• Foot whipping was a commonly reported torture method used by the security officers of Bahrain on its citizens between 1974 and 2001. See Torture in Bahrain.
• Falanga is allegedly used by the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) against persons suspected of involvement with the opposition Movement for Democratic Change parties (MDC-T and MDC-M).
• The Prime Minister of Swaziland, Barnabas Sibusiso Dlamini, threatened to use this form of torture (sipakatane) to punish South African activists who had taken part in a mass protest for democracy in that country.
• Kerala Police is supposed to have used this as a part of torturing Naxals during the emergency period.
• Reportedly used by Assad regime on Syrians in Homs.
• Use phalanx of torturing prisoners has been reported on the status of the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein in Iraq (1979-2003).
• Reportedly used in Tunisia by security forces.
• Recent research in imaging of torture victims confirms it is still used in several other countries.

In literature

• In act V, scene I of the Shakespearean comedy As You Like It, Touchstone threatens William with the line: "I will deal in poison with thee, or in bastinado, or in steel..."
• In act I, scene X of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's opera, Die Entführung aus dem Serail ("The Abduction from the Seraglio"), Osmin threatens Belmonte and Pedrillo with bastinado: "Sonst soll die Bastonade Euch gleich zu Diensten steh'n."
• In act I, scene XIX of Mozart's opera The Magic Flute, Sarastro orders Monostatos to be punished with 77 blows on the soles of his feet: "He! gebt dem Ehrenmann sogleich/nur sieben und siebenzig Sohlenstreich'."
• In Chapter 8, Climatic Conditions, of Robert Irwin’s novel The Arabian Nightmare, Sultan’s doppelgänger is discovered and is questioned. “He was bastinadoed lightly to make him talk (for a heavy bastinado killed), but the man sobered up quickly and said nothing.”
• In Chapter 31 of Innocents Abroad by Mark Twain, a member of Twain's party goes to collect a specimen from the face of the Sphinx and Twain sends a sheik to warn him of the consequences: "...by the laws of Egypt the crime he was attempting to commit was punishable with imprisonment or the bastinado."
• In Tony Anthony's autobiography: Taming the Tiger, he was tortured and interrogated by Cyprian policemen using primarily this method, before being imprisoned in Nicosia central prison.

Methods

Middle Eastern falaka using a horizontal plank (Iran, photo by Antoin Sevruguin)

Depiction of punishment bench as used for bastinado in several German prisons during the Nazi-era

Bastinado is typically implemented with a beating accessory such as a cane or rod, more infrequently a short whip or strap. The prisoner is barefooted and restrained in such manner, that contortions of the body do not disrupt the process and the feet cannot be shifted out of position. The intention is to avert serious injuries of the forefoot by stray hitting, especially of the fracturable toes, so the stroke impacts are largely absorbed by the muscular tissue inside the vaults of the feet.

The Middle Eastern falaka method entails tying up the person's feet into an elevated position while lying on the back, the beating is generally done with a solid wooden stick. The term falaka describes the wooden plank used to tie up the ankles, however different devices are used for this purpose. The more unlike German method that was used pending the end of the Nazi-regime consisted in fastening the prisoner prone onto a wooden bench or a plank forcing the exposed feet into a pointed posture (plantar flexion) with the bare undersides facing upward. The upper body and ankles were fastened onto the bench with hands tied behind. The person was hereby rendered practically immobile so the strokes could be inflicted with a high level of accuracy, mostly using a cane or short whip. This form was mainly used in women's prisons and labor camps where inmates often had to remain barefoot uniformly.

The middle eastern falaka is notably more inclined to cause serious injuries such as bone fractures and nerve damage than the former German method, as the person undergoing falaka can still move the feet out of position. As a result, the strokes impact rather randomly and injury-prone spots are frequently affected. As falaka is mainly carried out with a rigid stick, it often causes blunt trauma leaving the person unable to walk subsequently and sometimes impeded for life. For the earlier German form the ankles and upper body were tightly fastened in place so rendering the prisoner principally unable to move, while the beatings were done with thin or flexible implements of lighter weight. As the effects hereby usually remained superficial, serious injuries were largely averted and despite still inflicting immense levels of pain during the procedure, the person was mostly still able to walk by foot after conclusion of the punishment.

Effects

The strokes predominantly impact on the vaults of the feet, which are exceptionally touch-sensitive and also susceptible to pain due to the tight clustering of nerve endings.

Physical

Beating marks caused by foot whipping

When implemented with a thin and flexible object the physical effects usually remain temporary. The numerous bones and tendons of the foot are protected by muscular tissue so the impact is largely absorbed by the skin and muscles. The skin under the soles of the feet is of higher consistence and elasticity similar to that of the palms. Hematoma therefore rarely occur in this area, superficial beating marks recede within hours to a couple of days depending on the beating device and the intensity of the strokes.

If no massive or heavy objects are used for the beating according to the more temperate western form of appearance, the undergoing person usually remains able to walk without help following the punishment. If the beating is however executed with inflexible and heavier devices using the middle eastern falaka method, the often sustained injuries can take a long time to heal with lasting or irreversible physical damage.

When thin and flexible instruments are used for the western method the immediate experiences of pain are described as stinging and piercing while the instant sensations are relatively intense and radiate through the body system reflexively. The aftereffect is often described as searing or burning, easing off within a few hours for the most part. A muted stinging sensation is often felt for a couple of days following the procedure. As the skin area under the soles of the feet does not adapt to recurring pain impacts, the pain sensations do not lessen as an effect of continuous beatings. The subjective perception of pain is however intensified through additional impacts due to increased activation of nociceptors. Accordingly, after a certain level of activation, a single impact normally perceived as facile can already cause a formidable pain sensation. When subjected to recurring impacts of a near constant intensity under the soles of the feet, a receiving person's pain experience is therefore gradually increasing until a maximum level is reached.

The subjective experience of physical pain can however diverge according to a person's individual pain tolerance and further amplification through anxiety and agitation. Hereby the human organism is generally more susceptible to pain the more apprehensive and worried the person feels about it.

Psychological

Forcing a person to stay barefoot in a situation of detention, as is still common practice in many countries today (see Barefoot:Imprisonment and slavery for reference), can already have an unsettling effect on the individual. This factor tends to result in feelings of insecurity due to the increased vulnerability of shoeless feet and also of indignity through the unaccustomed and mostly unwilling exposure. This circumstance by itself can aggravate the typical agitation induced by the experience of incarceration as such. Hereby a prisoner often perceives the reluctant exposure of his or her bare feet as a deliberate element of degradation and oppression as it is a traditional indicator of imprisonment and slavery. This situation alone can lead to distress and intimidation.

The mentioned effects are usually intensified if the especially susceptible soles of the feet are a target for corporal punishment. As the feet are usually hidden and protected by shoes, notably avoiding to expose the undersides in social situations (which is placed under strict taboo in some civilized cultures), the exposure for the purpose of bastinado typically leads to distress and humiliation, even more as it is generally enforced by restraints. By its nature the actual beating conveys an especially steep imbalance in power between the executing participants (typically police, correctional officers or similar) towards the receiving individual (usually detainee or prisoner) as a usually concealed and therefore relatively private section of the body is accessed by force. Through this subtextual crossing of boundaries the powerlessness of the recipient against the executing party is demonstrated in a particularly plain manner. This aspect often increases the angst-inducing elements of any corporal punishment, which derive from being defenseless against the continuous infliction of pain and being unable to evade the situation due to the inescapable restraints. Therefore, foot whipping is irrespective of the diverging amounts of physical suffering usually perceived as more degrading than most other appearances of flagellation as those do not typically aim at relatively secreted sections of the body.

The entire situation of a bastinado punishment involving a high rate of physical and mental suffering is mostly perceived as particularly degrading by the receiving individual. The eventual loss of self-control due to the intense pain as well as the associated cognition of weakness and vulnerability often damages the individual’s self-esteem, especially in a situation of imprisonment. The experience of being powerless as well as defenceless against the executing party can also deconstruct the self-perception of the receiving individual.

As a result, a punishment by means of bastinado has a damaging emotional impact on the receiving person in addition to the element of physical suffering. Foot whipping is therefore widely regarded as one of the most intimidatory methods of corporal punishment and to this day frequently employed in penal institutions of several countries.

See also

• Judicial corporal punishment
• Corporal punishment
• Public humiliation
• Flagellation
• Caning
• Barefoot
• Physical restraint
• Prisoners' rights