An article by Aryn Baker, Middle East Bureau Chief for TIME:
Three shots ring out in close succession, and the woman’s shawl-shrouded
body slumps to the ground. Whoops, cheers and praise to Allah follow
another four shots into her inert form. The latest video footage to come out of Afghanistan purports to show the execution of an allegedly adulterous woman at the hands of the Taliban. The video,
filmed last month on a mobile phone and obtained by Reuters, is
shocking. But even more atrocious is the fact that such incidents are on
the rise in Afghanistan, from Taliban executions to
gruesome punishments like cutting off noses and ears, whippings and the
forced amputations of hands for accusations of theft. The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission notes
that cases of extreme violence against women are on the rise — some are
Taliban-inflicted, but many are simply eruptions of ancient forms of
tribal justice unchecked by Afghan society and the government. The
Taliban, after all, based their extreme edicts not just on a
fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law but also on tribal
traditions that predate Islam. This latest video, as many have
pointed out, supposedly presages the fate of Afghanistan’s women when
foreign troops pull out over the next 2½ years. But the fact that such
punishments continue to be meted out even with some 100,000 foreign
troops still on the ground in Afghanistan is an indication that when it
comes to women’s rights at least, the 11-year experiment in nation
building has come to very little. And that has less to do with the
commitment to women than with the weak support for education across the
board.
