Foot whipping

Foot whipping, falanga/falaka or bastinado is a method of inflicting pain and humiliation by administering a beating on the soles of a person's bare feet.

Unlike most types of flogging, it is meant more to be painful than to cause actual injury to the victim.

The German term is Bastonade, deriving from the Italian noun bastonata (stroke with the use of a stick).

[8] Foot whipping was common practice as means of disciplinary punishment in different kinds of institutions throughout Central Europe until the 1950s, especially in German territories.

[9] Throughout the Nazi era it was frequently used in German penal institutions and labour camps.It was also inflicted on the population in occupied territories, notably Denmark and Norway.

Bastinado demonstration using a cane
Middle Eastern falaka using a plank; Iran , early 20th century
Foot whipping in an Iraqi prison; museum exhibit
Fig. 5.—The Bastinado; Beni-Hassan. (Champollion, pl. 390.) in A History of Art in Ancient Egypt (1883)