Afghan courts get failing grade in grisly mob murder of Farkhunda Malikzada: analysis

[MariaThinks]

Source: The Toronto Star

It was a crime that shocked even veteran Afghanistan watchers: a young woman murdered in the capital by a frenzied mob, who beat her with fists and wooden planks in March 2015.

In the orgy of violence, 27-year-old Farkhunda Malikzada’s body was thrown from a roof, run over by a car, then dragged to the trash-strewn banks of the Kabul River and set ablaze — while police failed to intervene.

Her alleged crime: burning pages from a Quran.

That was exposed as false: 49 suspects were rounded up and 13 charged and convicted. The “Farkhunda murder” became an international test for Afghanistan’s shaky judicial system.

But last week — one year after her killing — the country’s highest court reduced the sentences of the convicted men and confirmed a lower court’s decision to quash four death sentences.


Read more: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2016/03/14/afghan-courts-get-failing-grade-in-grisly-mob-murder-of-farkhunda-malikzada-analysis.html

[TipTok]

1. Currently in that crap shack of a country...

Doesn't even make my surprise meter wiggle

It's the only place I've ever been with absolutely no redeeming qualities.

[Plucketeer]

2. Vast mineral wealth

and opium - are the only reasons so many Americans are still giving their lives there. The citizens are still living a prehistoric lifestyle - only with modern age firearms.

[TipTok]

3. ... And cell phones

[maxsolomon]

5. Absent of humans, it would be a very pretty place.

And their hounds are nice looking. Also their knitted blankets.

Was this woman Pashtun? I suspect she was not.

[TipTok]

6. Had this conversation earlier today...

Talked about how nice the mountains would be if they weren't filled with violent regressive assholes.

[maxsolomon]

9. I told anyone who'd listen in 2002 that we should have given the country to RAWA

Or, alternately, bombed Tora Bora into dust and left.

[mountain grammy]

4. Location, location, location...

When Allah had made the rest of the world, he saw there was a lot of rubbish left over, bits and pieces and things that did not fit anywhere else. He collected them all together and threw them down on the earth. That was Afghanistan.
old Afghan saying..


Read more: http://www.ukessays.com/essays/politics/brief-history-and-geo-strategic-location-of-afghanistan-politics-essay.php#ixzz430CMKS4t

[LiberalLovinLug]

7. Another example

Of the destructive aspect of fanatical religion. And sorry, this may not be very PC, but Islam has every other major religion over a barrel on their extremism. Absolutely CRAZY that some ancient book is revered to such a degree that EVEN IF she did what she was accused of, the fact that it drove otherwise law abiding family men and women to act like psycho killers is so disturbing.

[Coventina]

8. While I am glad the death sentences were reduced, the overall story is very disheartening.

Why on earth would anyone kill anyone else over "allegedly" desecrating a book?

Even if it was rare and valuable?



For the victim