Lynching turns focus on women's rights in Afghanistan
The brutal mob slaying of a 27-year-old Muslim woman provoked week-long demonstrations in Kabul.
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| Independent Afghan civil society activist women carry the coffin of Farkhunda, 27, who was lynched by an angry mob in central Kabul on March 22, 2015. The body of Farkhunda, 27, was carried to the graveyard by women amid crowds of men. |
The death of the woman, Farkhunda, at the hands of an angry mob on March 19 has cast a sharp focus on women’s rights and Islamic values in Afghanistan.
How Farkhunda died is not in dispute. Numerous bystanders took mobile phone photos and videos of her death that were uploaded to social media. She was savagely beaten, repeatedly run over by a vehicle and then set on fire in front of the Sham-Do-Shamira mosque located in a busy market strip.
Already 29 men have been arrested in relation to the incident, including 13 police officers and the mullah understood to have triggered the attack with his false claim that Farkhunda had burned the Qu’ran.
Protestors have demanded justice for those responsible for Farkhunda’s death, but more broadly, they are calling for a society where all women are free to live without fear.
Fighting back tears while discussing Farkhunda’s killing during last week’s protests, many women said none of them would feel safe until more was done to protect them and to make such actions insupportable in Afghan society.
Khatera, 24, who marched during protests on Tuesday, said she had not been able to sleep properly since she saw the videos and photos of Farkhunda on Facebook.
“I am uncomfortable even with these men here,” she said, indicating those marching and shouting slogans in support of Farkhunda.
“If the police could not stop this happening to one woman for no reason, how do we know it will not happen again?”
Indeed, the footage making the rounds on social media shows that several uniformed police officers watched passively as Farkhunda endured a slow and savage death.
It is not entirely clear what precipitated the attack. Farkhunda and the mullah are believed to have argued over the sale of a tawiz — a paper amulet containing Islamic symbols or words from the Qu’ran that some believe has the power to heal or bring good fortune. Some accounts say that Farkhunda had purchased one herself and accused the mullah of being a fraud when it didn’t work, and he had asked her for more money for another one.
Another account says Farkhunda burned one of the tawiz provided by the mullah, possibly the act that led to the mullah’s enraged and falsified claim that she had burned the Qu’ran.
Already, the highest Islamic authority in Kabul, the Ulema Council, met and issued a statement supporting Farkhunda’s criticism of the now-jailed mullah for selling tawiz. The Ulema Council also urged Muslims to avoid using the tawiz, calling it a practice that goes against Islam.
After the attack, her father was instructed by police to say she was mentally ill for fear that the mob might target the rest of the family as well. In truth, Farkhunda was an intelligent and devout Muslim studying to become a religion teacher.
It was also not the first time she was outspoken on matters of religion, according to 22-year-old Yalda, who frequented the same shrine.
Yalda, a university student, said that Farkhunda had already caused some tension by telling other women they did not have to attend the mosque, and that they could pray to Allah anywhere and at any time and they would still be heard.
Though gender-based violence in Afghanistan is uncomfortably common, many have said the brutality of Farkhunda’s killing represented something new in a country where notions of honor, religion and ‘mob justice’ have often trumped an individual’s human rights and established legal protections.
Afghanistan enacted the Elimination of Violence against Women law in 2009 by decree of then president Hamid Karzai. Among other things, the landmark legislation criminalized “customs, traditions and practices causing violence against women and which are against Islamic sharia.”
Despite the protections promised under the law, a total of 4,505 cases of violence against women were reported between March 2012 and March 2013, according to a report by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs.
The majority of these cases (40.5 percent) involved “beatings/battery and laceration,” but the second-highest category of violence was murder, with 327 cases filed during the period covered by the report.
The Afghan government moved swiftly following Farkhunda’s killing with an investigation and statement that she had not burned the Qu’ran, followed by the rapid arrests of the 29 men identified mostly by the mobile phone footage of the attack.
However, a number of government officials expressed approval of the lynching.
Kabul police chief spokesman, Hashmatullah Stanikzai, was one of those who endorsed Farkhunda’s killing on his personal Facebook page, believing she had burned the Qu’ran. He has since been dismissed.
Local media reported that the deputy minister for broadcasting services and media, Simin Ghazal Hassan Zadada, religious scholar Maulawi Ayaz Niazi and parliamentarian Zalmai Zabuli all initially endorsed the killing, but later apologized for their statements.
Farkhunda’s murder has resonated with women in Afghanistan in a way that many say they have not previously seen. Her March 22 funeral saw thousands of people attend, and a group of women broke with tradition by carrying her coffin in place of men.
“[Since the killing] until now, I’m still not okay,” said Fatana Gailani, founder of the Afghanistan Women’s Council and an advocate for women’s rights for the last 35 years.
“To be really honest, I am worried about the future.”
The way Farkhunda was killed was shocking enough, Gailani said, but the fact that it happened in Kabul, so close to the Presidential Palace and a police headquarters, all the while being filmed and photographed, caused her deep concern.
“This is a very new situation for us because why have men become like this in the capital? These are men who would watch the news, who are more educated, who see women everywhere in the street,” Gailani said.
She added that she could not speculate on what had happened in the minds of the men who participated in the killing of Farhkanda and that while she participated in the weeklong protests, she was concerned about what impact the demonstrations might actually have in the absence of a strong government committed to being an agent of change.
“We also don’t trust the government because it’s too weak. But we will see what they do. We are waiting.”
Women protesters call Farkhunda their sister and their daughter, and many have come to identify with her plight.
“We have many suicide attacks and conflict in Afghanistan. But this, this is something different,” said Shukria, 40, standing at the site where Farkhunda received the first blows from her attackers.
“How can 20 men kill one young girl like this? I hate all men, even my husband. Even on my way here, a man asked me why I was crying,” Shukria said.
“’Are you Farkhunda’s mother? No? Then why are you crying?’” he asked her.
She added that the killing has made her consider withdrawing her daughters from school over fears that they could meet a similar fate.
“The government needs to send a clear message or we will not go out. The same thing might happen to us.”
Source: UCAN
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