The March 19th mob of men attacked 27-year old female Farkhunda before tossing her off a bridge and setting her body on fire. She was being accused of setting a Qur’an on fire. According to Farkhunda’s parents she was a religious teacher who taught the Qur’an to children and that there was no way their daughter would burn the pages of the holy book. The fight was instigated by a local mullah of the Mosque, who was mad because Farkhunda’s accusations that he was distributing false tawiz (pieces of paper that contained verses of the Qur’an). An Afghan judge sentenced four men to death. He also sentenced eight other suspects to 16-years and the other eighteen were found not guilty. And there was no evidence to Farkhunda ever burning the Qur’an.
The equality between women and men here is obviously unequal. But these men are being punished which shows the government taking some action in justice. This shows that Afghanistan has changed since the Old Afghanistan of the Taliban.
another sign of democracy is protest. This incident caused many protests and women were infuriated with women’s rights abuse. This is a real eye-opener to how poorly women get treated in Afghanistan. Do you think they would have attacked a male like this if a rumor was spread about them burning a Qur’an? Do you the actions the mob of men took was “Okay”?
http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/06/asia/afghanistan-woman-killed/index.html