Dozens tried for mob killing of Afghan woman that sparked outcry
KABUL, Afghanistan — Dozens of Afghan men including several policemen faced trial Saturday over the mob killing in Kabul of a 27-year-old woman accused of burning a Quran, a lynching that prompted unprecedented protests.
The trial, expected to last two days, was broadcast live on television.
A frenzied crowd beat and kicked the woman, named Farkhunda, to death on March 19 and set her body on fire as several police looked on near a shrine in central Kabul.
The attack was captured by mobile phone video and distributed online. Some of those arrested were tracked down after bragging about participating on social media.
One of the men on trial Saturday, identified only as Sharifullah, described his role in the attack.
“I kicked her once or twice but did not participate in the whole thing,” he testified. “Others were asking for a match box, so I gave them my lighter.”
The broad-daylight attack proved a polarizing incident in this conservative Muslim country. Some defended the killing as a defense of Islam, but many others were outraged at the viciousness of the attack even before an investigation showed that Farkhunda had been falsely accused of desecrating the holy book.
Several demonstrations opposing violence against women sprung up in Kabul, including one in the past month that re-enacted the attack.
It is the first time since the Taliban were ousted in 2001 that a popular movement has mobilized in support of a woman.
Under the Islamist Taliban regime, women were banned from leaving home without a male guardian, denied education and forced to wear the all-covering burqa.
Women’s rights were enshrined in Afghanistan’s constitution after the Taliban were ousted by a U.S.backed military intervention, but the majority of society remains deeply conservative.
While the demonstrations against Farkhunda’s killing were unusual, demonstrations against insulting Islam are more common.
In 2012, several people were killed in protests across the country after charred copies of the Muslim holy book were found on a military base near Kabul. President Barack Obama apologized for the incident at the time.
Two people died in Kabul in January during protests against Charlie Hebdo's cartoons of the Prophet Mohammad, following the killings of staff of the satirical weekly at its offices in Paris by Islamist gunmen.
Also on Saturday, Qatar said it was hosting a dialog this weekend between Afghan officials and representatives of the Taliban insurgents on ways to end the country's long war.
Taliban’s official spokesman said the insurgents were sending an eightmember delegation to a conference in Doha held by the Pugwash Council, a global organization that promotes dialog to resolve conflicts. But he denied any move toward negotiations.
Another Taliban leader, however, and the deputy head of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council indicated that face-to-face meetings on the sidelines of that conference were planned.
Such meetings would be the first sign of life in weeks for a hoped-for peace process, but it was unclear whether they would lead to formal talks between the Taliban and the U.S.-backed Afghan government.
Several secret initiatives have failed over the 13-yearold war, and the Taliban recently launched a fierce new offensive that brought its fighters to the outskirts of a northern provincial capital.
Previous efforts to open channels of communication, including the establishment of a Taliban political office in Qatar in 2013 as part of a U.S.-sponsored push to promote talks, have led nowhere.
Hopes were raised again in February when Pakistan’s army chief told Afghan President Ashraf Ghani that senior Taliban figures were finally open to talks, but since then there has been little progress.
One obstacle is division among the Taliban’s fractured leadership over dialog. The insurgents’ top political leader is said to favor talks while the top battlefield commander opposes them.