By: Agence France-Presse May 3, 2013 11:20 AM (GMT 8+)
KABUL -- In front of 300 villagers, Halima's father shot her in the head, stomach and waist -- a public execution overseen by local religious leaders in Afghanistan to punish her for an alleged affair.
Halima, aged between 18 and 20 and a mother of two children, was killed for bringing "dishonor" on her family in a case that underlines how the country is still struggling to protect women more than 11 years after the fall of Taliban regime.
Police in the northwestern province of Badghis said Halima was accused of running away with a male cousin while her husband was in Iran, and her father sought advice from Taliban-backed clerics on how to punish her.
"People in the mosque and village started taunting him about her escape with the cousin," Badghis provincial police chief Sharafuddin Sharaf told AFP.
"A local cleric who runs a madrassa told him that she must be punished with death, and the mullahs said she should be executed in public.
"The father killed his daughter with three shots as instructed by religious elders and in front of villagers. We went there two days later but he and his entire family had fled."
Amnesty International said the killing, which occurred on April 22 in the village of Kookchaheel in Badghis province, was damning evidence of how little control Afghan police have over many areas of the country.
"Violence against women continues to be endemic in Afghanistan and those responsible very rarely face justice," Amnesty's Afghanistan researcher Horia Mosadiq said.
"Not only do women face violence at the hands of family members for reasons of preserving so-called 'honor', but frequently women face human rights abuses resulting from verdicts issued by traditional, informal justice systems."
Police in Baghdis, a remote and impoverished province that borders Turkmenistan, said Halima had run away with her cousin to a village 30 kilometers away.
Her father found her after 10 days and brought her back home, where clerics told him he must kill her in front of the villagers to assuage his family's humiliation.
A Badghis-based women's rights activist said he had seen video footage of Hamila's execution, which AFP was not able to obtain.
"On the video, she is shot three times in front of 300-400 people. Her brother witnesses her death and breaks down in tears," said the activist, who declined to be named to avoid reprisals.
"She is sitting on her knees in the dust, wearing a large chador veil. A mullah announces her funeral prayers first then her father shoots her from behind with an AK-47 at a distance of about five meters.
"We have learned that a Taliban shadow governor in the region asked the mullahs to issue the death penalty for her.
"The local religious council first said she should be stoned to death, but since the cousin was not there, they decided that she should be shot."
It is not known what happened to the cousin with whom she ran away.
The activist added that Halima's husband had objected to the killing and tried to return from Iran before the execution.
Mirwais Mirzakwal, head of the Badghis provincial government's media department, confirmed the accounts of how Halima died but gave no further details.
Women in male-dominated Afghanistan still suffer horrendous abuse after the fall of the 1996-2001 Taliban regime, which banned them from attending school or any form of public activity.
Under the Taliban, women risked being beaten if they did not wear full burqas or if they left the house without a male escort.
In 2009, Afghanistan passed a benchmark law criminalizing forced marriage, rape, beatings and other violence against women, but Amnesty and other campaigning groups say it is rarely enforced.
With international troops withdrawing next year, many Afghan women fear any advances made since 2001 will evaporate as the Taliban exert increasing influence at local and national levels.
Badghis police chief Sharaf said officers were investigating Halima's killing, but no one had yet been arrested.
"We are trying to bring the perpetrators to justice," he said, admitting that authorities had only limited power in villages such as Kookchaheel.
"It is a volatile place and on the border between Badghis and Herat province, and the Taliban is also active."
I have a book featuring Muslims who left Islam or former Muslims I guess would fit, talking about why they had to dump it. So many times it was simply growing up and seeing how ridiculous that world is. How out dated/primitive/barbaric things were and nobody seeming to want to change that and come up to the 21 century. Right there a great example of primitive/barbaric ideas.
It would help if they had other things to occupy their minds, when you have no home team to root for, nothing to rock out with, no Hollywood, etc etc ya tend to get lost in the sand/rocks.
Last edited by Avante; 05-03-2013 at 06:45 PM.
Had sex with her cousin eh? It seems Afghan Muslims and American Christians particularly from the south, have more in common than they think.
How many American Christians are blowing their daughter away in public?
My comment wasn't intended to be taken seriously.
Sorry man, it just seems noboby really gets this. Christians pretty much realize times have changed, that can't be said about Islam.
Some aren't as receptive to change as others. I'm not trying to justify their actions in any way. But, I would imagine it's extremely hard to galvanize any sort of movement in their society.
I get the impression it's more like a herd of cattle.
dude should've shot her daughter in the pussy and leave her bleeding to death tbh. muslims are full of extremist s but if there's one thing i can agree with them on, that's how they treat those es tbh.
Kind of puts the constant whining of Western feminists in perspective, tbh.
"Sure, women in third-world countries are being killed by their relatives for having affairs, but we don't get to play Augusta!"
Why are you all still intent of such stories? Where are the multiculturalists? This is their culture. As much as I disagree with their practices, there is nothing we can do about it.
One of the few times I agree with WC completely.
This story isn't a surprise. It's how life works in that part of the world. The more we try to do about it, the more Islamic extremists can use us to fuel their insanity.
What a ing freak, sheesh~~~~~~~~~~
And how many things do we talk about here we have any control over?
es have too much freedom in the industrialized world we live in imho. the pussification of the world originated from england, when they elected a to the throne in the early 20th century if i remember correct. as more women acquire higher social status and the ability to influence the society, the feminist ideology quickly encroaches on the planet which gives women even more rights & freedom at the expense of men's. the vicious circle rolls on and on, and i believe something must be done to prevent the feminists from turning the world into a modern-day matriarchy tbh
Dude, get laid, ok?
My point about this is simple. Such stories just tug on heartstrings. Then the media hypes it. Then the politicians act on it.
They are playing the people...
Damn thank god we dont do like that here to our woman. They would go extinct and wed be stuck with the latarian miltons of the world lol
Peaceful religion, only a small % of them are terrorists, different cultures, random liberal media talking point, blah blah, etc...
Screw that, let's talk about how Christians are evil again.
We could blow them up. I'm not opposed to that.
Like we did in Libya?
We didn't do to Libya. We should turn the entire Middle East into a sheet of glass IMO.
Wrong, again. This is what we did to Libya. Our "Humanitarian" intervention.
That's nuthin. We should nuke'em.
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