Afghanistan: Mother and Daughter Stoned and Shot Dead

A group of armed men have stoned and shot dead a woman and her daughter in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province, security officials have told the BBC.

The officials blamed the Taliban, who they said had accused the women of “moral deviation and adultery”.

The police said two men had been arrested in connection with the murder.

The attack was only 300m from the governor’s office in Ghazni city, which is on a list of places to be transferred to Afghan security control.

The incident happened on Thursday in the Khawaja Hakim area of Ghazni city, where the family lived.

Marco Werman talks with the BBC’s Orla Guerin in Kabul, Afghanistan, about reports that a woman and her daughter were stoned and then shot to death Thursday by the Taliban in the city of Ghazni.

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Marco Werman: I am Marco Werman. This is The World. Ten years of war in Afghanistan have changed many things especially for women there. The Taliban who were ousted from power a decade ago were known for their brutal treatment of women who defied their strict rules. Improving the lives of Afghan women and girls was an often sided objective when the war started in 2001. So, it’s disheartening to hear this news from Afghanistan a decade later. A woman and her daughter were stoned and then shot dead by the Taliban in the central city of Ghazni. The BBC’s Orla Guerin is in Kabul and has the details.

Orla Guerin: At about 3:30 or 4:00 in the morning, local time on Thursday morning, local sources say that armed Taliban entered the home of this young widow and her daughter. The women were accused of adultery. They were dragged into the yard in front of their house bordering the street. Initially, they were stoned and subsequently they were shot to death. Now that information is coming to us from relatives and from medical sources who have seen the bodies. This attack took place just 300 meters from the office of the Police Chief and from adjoining offices of the Governor, and also of Afghanistan’s main intelligence agency. It’s an indication of how easy it is for the Taliban to strike in this city, and this is a city which is due to be handed back from NATO to Afghan control. But very clearly, the Afghan government is struggling to establish its authority there.

Werman: Why is it believed that it was the Taliban that carried this out and not some other extremist group?

Guerin: Well, Afghan intelligence sources are telling us it was a Taliban attack. There are Taliban fighters roaming freely on the edge of Ghazni city, and the Taliban have a very visible presence. There are Taliban songs playing on some of the local radio stations. The Taliban have their own shadow governor for the province; they have shadow judges. They control the main roads in Ghazni province. They impose taxes. They threaten girls who go to school. This is a province of 18 districts. We believe that only 7 of those districts are in government control.

Werman: It’s a shocking murder, more so that it was done by stoning. How frequent though are these kinds of killings of women these days, especially in such a manner that evokes the rule of the Taliban pre-2001 in Afghanistan?

Guerin: Well, we hear of these cases and some of them come to light, not all of them. In this instance, although the women were initially stoned, we understand from medical sources that they died as a result of gunshot wounds. There was another case relatively recently which caused a great deal of shock and distress here in Afghanistan. That was a young couple who, if fact, were stoned to death last August in Kunduz province. But, video footage and mobile phone footage of those killings came to light only in January, and were particularly gruesome and particularly distressing. A woman was, in that instance, also stoned but survived the stoning, survived 2 minutes of a violent attack of stoning and she was also shot by the Taliban at the end.

Werman: It’s just shocking that 10 years after the occupation of Afghanistan this is still going on.

Guerin: It’s still going on and it’s one of the great concerns for Afghan women activists because now, in the preparation for the exit of foreign forces and also in the attempts to reach a peace deal with the insurgents, they feel that whatever little fragile progress has been achieved here in the last 10 years that that could be rolled back. Women’s activists here will tell you that they feel the clock is ticking. Many of those women now figure that they are targets. One said to me recently that it’s something they joke about between themselves, that they may be hung when the Taliban come back. She said they have to make it a joke because the fear is so real. And the complaint you also hear from these women is that the Afghan government is not giving them adequate representation. They are still struggling to be adequately represented at the Bonn conference in Germany at which so much about the future of Afghanistan will be decided.

Werman: I mean, so many people are talking about the Taliban being a part of some kind of negotiation in the future. An incident like this just doesn’t seem like Afghan women, even being at the table, will mean that much.

Guerin: Well, it appears inevitable that the Taliban will be part of some kind of power-sharing formula here. Nobody is sure of when that arrangement will come into being or how long it’s going to take. But it’s certainly very clear that the Taliban cannot be cut out of the picture; that they are in control, as we speak, of significant parts of this country and in those areas, life for women today is very similar to the life they enjoyed 10 years ago. They can’t leave their homes, they can’t educate their daughters, they can’t work for a living and they dare not be seen outside without a male relative. So, there are parts of the country in which that has never changed. And people here who lived under the old Taliban regime and who remember it say they still have the nightmares and they have the fears that, in some form, it will return.

Werman: The BBC’s Orla Guerin speaking with us from Kabul. Thanks so much.

Guerin: No problem.

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