Arrests after woman beaten, set ablaze in Afghanistan

[LostOne4Ever]

[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#dcdcdc; padding-bottom:5px; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-bottom:none; border-radius:0.4615em 0.4615em 0em 0em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]Arrests after woman beaten, set ablaze in Afghanistan[div class="excerpt" style="background-color:#f0f0f0; border:1px solid #bfbfbf; border-top:none; border-radius:0em 0em 0.4615em 0.4615em; box-shadow:3px 3px 3px #999999;"]By Greg Botelho and Masoud Popalzai, CNN
Updated 4:33 AM ET, Sat March 21, 2015

[center][/center]

Kabul, Afghanistan (CNN)The Afghan woman is dragged onto a roof and hit with a stick, as a horde of angry, screaming men swarm around her.

At one point, video shows her standing with her face covered in blood. She is pushed and falls over, and her beating continues with feet, with rocks, with boards. Then, in the last part of the video, her body is engulfed in flames -- though it's not known whether, by that point, she was already dead.

This horrific scene played out in Kabul on Thursday. It's already had ripple effects, including a United Nations statement on Friday condemning what it called "the brutal killing and burning of a 27-year-old mentally ill woman."

That corresponds with what the woman's parents told CNN affiliate Tolo News, saying their daughter suffered from mental health problems for the last 16 years.


[font style="font-family:'Georgia','Baskerville Old Face','Helvetica',fantasy;" size=4 color=teal]More at link

This is a horrible tragedy and nobody should have to suffer this for disrespecting a book...much less a mentally ill woman.

I am just glad they are finding these criminals and arresting them. Hopefully the government will get justice for this woman.[/font]

[Helen Borg]

1. It would be amazing for any woman

not to suffer of some form of mental illness in a place like that... Really. I can imagine anyone with strong anticonforming

[Warren Stupidity]

2. She was killed. Horrific.

[cbayer]

3. Agree - a terrible, terrible event.

The details are really sketchy. No evidence of a burned book has been found. It's not clear whether the crowd knew she was psychiatrically ill.

That people just filmed this and did nothing to stop it is the saddest part of all.

[muriel_volestrangler]

4. Afghan woman killed by mob in Kabul was innocent, says investigator (and not mentally ill)

A woman killed by an angry mob in front of police in the Afghan capital last week for allegedly burning a copy of Islam’s holy book was wrongly accused, Afghanistan’s top criminal investigator has said.

Mobile phone footage circulating on social media shows police at the scene did not save the 27-year-old woman, Farkhunda, who was beaten with sticks and set on fire by a crowd of men in central Kabul on Thursday.

“Last night I went through all documents and evidence once again, but I couldn’t find any evidence to say Farkhunda burnt the holy Qur’an,” Gen Mohammad Zahir told reporters at her funeral on Sunday. “Farkhunda was totally innocent.”
...
Farkhunda was a teacher of Islamic studies, according to her brother, who denied media reports that she had been mentally ill. He said this was a made-up defence by their father, who wanted to protect the family after police told them to leave the city for their own safety.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/mar/22/afghan-woman-killed-mob-kabul-innocent

Bonus vomit-inducing quote: the murder "drew praise from some quarters, including from a prominent cleric who asserted the men had a right to defend their Muslim beliefs at all costs".

[cbayer]

5. What a horrible story.

I wonder what really set this off. If she was sane and a teacher of Islamic studies, it is hard to imagine what exactly occurred that triggered this.

Glad the police officers that didn't intervene have been arrested.

The fact that she was a teacher at all is actually a good sign that women have made at least a small amount of progress.

Perhaps that is why they killed her?

[Heddi]

6. Wait...what?

"The fact that she was a teacher at all is actually a good sign that women have made at least a small amount of progress. "

No, that's not progress *at all* if women teachers are being killed just because they're women teachers.

Is it better to be killed because you were a woman teacher, than to be killed just for being a woman?

That's a mighty low bar for "progress" you have there, Cbayer. PROGRESS would mean being able to be a teacher AND NOT BE KILLED FOR IT.

[truebrit71]

7. Either way, religion had nothing to do with it...

Nothing at all....

[Heddi]

8. No. Nothing at all

clearly these Afghans were anti-theists.

[Lordquinton]

26. Nothing at all

[trotsky]

27. Stupid sexy Flanders! n/t

[muriel_volestrangler]

9. She was telling women not to waste money on magic amulets for pregnancy

The attack appeared to have grown out of a dispute between Farkhunda, a veiled woman who had just finished a degree in religious studies and was preparing to take a teaching post, and men who sold amulets at Shah-Do Shamshera shrine, where the killing happened.

She regarded the amulet sellers as parasites and told women not to waste their money on them, friends and family said. Her father, Mohammed Nadir, said the men responded by making false accusations that she had torched a Qur’an.

“Based on their lies, people decided Farkhunda was not a Muslim and beat her to death,” he said. The Interior Ministry said it was providing extra protection for the family.

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2015/03/22/afghan-womens-rights-activist-break-with-tradition-to-carry-body-of-woman-beaten-to-death-to-her-grave.html

According to this BBC report, it was one particular mullah, selling charms to women who wanted to get pregnant: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-32014077

[cbayer]

10. Wow! She was trying to throw the money changers out of the temple.

This is attracting national attention in what seems to be a good way.

Her pall bearers were all women. I would love to see the women in the middle east rise up, but there will be many martyrs.

[okasha]

11. Somehow that never ends well.

I hope the women do rise up. The excuse was religious, but the core of this evil was patriarchy. The victim dared to know more than the men who killed her. It's Malala's story with a tragic ending.

[cbayer]

12. Exactly. She dared to challenge a man and he made up the worst lie he could imagine about her,

knowing that it would enrage others.

The story is infused with religion and the patriarchy that is embedded in it.

[haikugal]

13. How does that make her mentally ill?

It wasn't that long ago that women were persecuted in this country for birth control...oh wait. No, really...men put their wives in the mental hospital, legally....declared them mentally ill with the full knowledge of everyone and they could do it with the legal system, in this country. Very useful for men donchaknow.

Disgusting!

[muriel_volestrangler]

14. It doesn't - the 'mentally ill' claim was in the first confusion of reports

and seems to have been someone trying to make an excuse for why someone would burn a Koran.

[haikugal]

15. Odd isn't...

That these religiously deluded maniacs think their special book is being burned when the only people I know who do such things (book burning) are other religiously deluded maniacs....

[cbayer]

16. We recently two separate members here advocating for bible and Q'uaran burnings

and neither was a religiously deluded maniac at all. Well, not religious at any rate, quite the opposite.

[trotsky]

17. That's a stretch, cbayer.

No one was advocating anything.

[haikugal]

18. I don't see any examples....

I like Redmand salt, it's good with anything.

[trotsky]

19. I recall throw-away comments, but nothing that comes close to demanding a book burning.

Which of course is the imagery that she'd prefer to have out there.

[okasha]

20. One of them was GreatestIAm,

who not only advocated book burning but called for assassination of the Pope in a journal entry. Why that post is allowed to stand escapes me.

[trotsky]

21. Greatest I Am is a self-proclaimed gnostic Christian.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1218158878
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1218159007
http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1218&pid=159023

Better luck next time.

[Warren Stupidity]

22. oops.

FAMOUS KENTUCKY CROW
1 lg. feathered crow
4 c. cow manure
1 pt. Old Crow Kentucky Bourbon
Mix one cup Old Crow Kentucky Bourbon with 4 cups cow manure until pastry. Pack the manure around the crow. Bake in preheated oven 2 hours at 375 degrees. Gently crack the manure crust and remove crow. Throw crow away. Serve manure with LARGE shot of Old Crow Kentucky Bourbon.

http://www.cooks.com/recipe/898922w2/famous-kentucky-crow.html

[cbayer]

23. The other was a member who is still on the site.

But, only believers do this kind of stuff apparently.

[Warren Stupidity]

24. Please provide a name and/or links to exactly what your assertion there is based on.

[trotsky]

25. Like with FAUX News, it's only important to get the assertion out there. Who needs facts?

Atheists have said it. Right here on DU. That's all you need to know. Never mind the one name provided is actually a theist. Just shut up and accept what she says as the truth, won't you?