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Loading...Taliban Publicly Executes Woman Accused of Adultery
A three-minute video obtained by Reuters shows a man shooting a burqa-clad woman five times at close range with an automatic rifle, with about 150 men watching. Afghan officials say that the man carrying out the brutal public execution is a member of the Taliban and that the woman, who had been accused of adultery, was killed a week ago only an hour’s drive from the Afghan capital of Kabul, in the village of Qimchok in Shinwari district.
As the man with the rifle approaches the woman, another man says “Allah warns us not to get close to adultery because it’s the wrong way. It is the order of Allah that she be executed.”
According to the Telegraph, the woman was reportedly named Najiba and was 22 years old. The first two shots missed her but the third struck her. The woman fell to the ground but the gunman continued to fire at her and the crowd shouted “Long live Islam, Long live Mujahideen (holy warriors).”
Provincial Governor Basir Salangi says that two Taliban commanders were sexually involved with the woman “either through rape or romantically, and decided to torture her and then kill her to settle a dispute between the two of them.”
Such public executions were common when the Taliban was in power in the 1990s. But as Ben Farmer writes in the Telegraph, footage and reports of these have more recently “emerged from rural areas where the militants’ retain influence and mete out their own justice.” They are highly worrisome evidence about the treatment of women in Afghanistan.
This most recent video suggests how very fragile is any progress that women in Afghanistan have made since Afghan forces, aided by the US, unseated the Taliban in 2001. Women have won basic rights in education, voting and work that were considered un-Islamic under the Taliban but, notes Reuters, many fear these will dissolve as the government of President Hamid Karzai and the US negotiate with the Taliban to end the conflict.
“After 10 years (of foreign intervention), and only a few kilometres from Kabul… how could this happen in front of all these people?” female lawmaker Fawzia Koofi said of the public execution in Parwan.
“This is happening under a government that claims to have made so much progress in women’s rights, claims to have changed women’s lives, and this is unacceptable. It is a huge step backwards,” said Koofi, a campaigner for girls’ education who wants to run in the 2014 presidential election.
Afghanistan’s independent human rights commission says that violence against women has risen sharply in the past year. Reuters describes a gruesome “honor killing” earlier last week in eastern Afghanistan, in which a 30-year-old woman and two of her children were beheaded by a man said to be her divorced husband.
The Afghanistan Human Rights Commission has condemned the public execution and the American embassy in Kabul has issued a statement about this “heinous crime.” The cruel and public killing of the woman is a horrific reminder of how violence remains a too-present reality for many women in Afghanistan.
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Read more: adultery, afghan, afghanistan, execution, rape, taliban, violence against women, war on women, Women's rights, WOW
Photo by Anuradha Sengupta
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273 comments
+ add your ownI WISH I COULD SAY THIS WAS A SHOCK, THIS IS A COUNTRY THAT TREATS WOMEN LIKE DIRT - DISGUSTING REALLY.
very sad.
Religion used as a tool to further ones agenda, it's not only men that are perpetuating this nonsense, but women as well. The big problem with this is that most of these people are illiterate and rely on other people to tell them how to live.
The muslim should read the Qu'ran where it says that a man should treat a woman as his own human body.
We have a near impossible job to do altering the mind sets of these Stone Age islamic people when they firmly believe this rubbish:
Mohammed said, "Isn't the witness of a woman equal to half that of a man's?" The women agreed. He said, "This is because of the deficiency of a woman's mind."
Koran 4:11 - Allah instructs you concerning your children: for the males, what is equal to the share of two females."
The prophet said, "I was shown the hell-fire. The majority of its dwellers were women who were ungrateful." Sahih Bukhari Vol 1 Book 2 No 28
It was marvellous that Malala, with the help of the British government, got away from the gun-toting bearded cretins in nighties.
Remove the cock & balls of the men involved & make them wear them on their foreheads in public.
Such a heinous crime is right! Women in Afghanistan simply do not have any rights - but there are some that are putting up a good fight for them.
How about a few public removals of appropriate appendages from these Taliban fighters and Taliban sympathizes who rape and murder and execute women with impunity and/or savage girls for going to school. As for Mother-in-laws who seem adept at instigating false accusations against their daughter-in-laws and try to sell them into prostitution, a public beheading would be appropriate.
Perhaps doing these "exhibition" in every village and town, at least once a month, or as appropriate, would certainly curtail the current abuses towards women based on a poor excuse for religious custom and piety.
the answer seems that Islamic fundamentalists are so completely committed to returning to the 7th century that there is NO place for them in even a semi-civilized 21st century. Outside of totally isolating them from affecting others, there is not much - besides hand wringing - that anyone can do. There are a million as bad, if not worse, than that animal who shot that woman, as there are those would change the situation.
A solution? I see the coming world social, economic, and political collapse as a means to start over with out them, but... this is something totally out of control.
Susan A.
though my native ancestors have suffered tremendously at the hands of "religion" imposed upon them by missionaries at the front edge of conquest... to say ALL of one is good and ALL of another is bad is still falling into absolutism. We continue our ancient ceremonies and prayers and we are committed to the teachings of the longhouse, where clan mothers are so important in making decisions . some would say we are "religious" . Would you condemn our longhouse beliefs and practices because we have deep convictions of a supreme creator and order in the universe and we keep a cycle of seasonal ceremonies? I think its too easy to become absolutist and condemn ALL for the sake of those abusing their power.
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