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http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/10/us-afghanistan-women-clerics-insight-idUSKBN0NV0VJ20150510
Afghanistan – Afghan Clerics Uneasy as Civil Rights & Women’s Rights Movements Gain Momentum
Members
of civil society organisations chant slogans during a protest to condemn the
killing of 27-year-old woman, Farkhunda, who was beaten with sticks and set on
fire by a crowd of men in central Kabul in broad daylight on Thursday, in
Kabul, in this file picture taken...
Reuters/Omar
Sobhaniright
KABUL | By
Mirwais Harooni and Jessica Donati
right
May 10,
2015 - KABUL Powerful religious leaders in Afghanistan are growing uneasy about
the challenge to their authority posed by rare civil rights protests in Kabul
and widespread anger over the lynching of a young woman wrongly accused of
burning a Koran.
The
highest religious authority, the Ulema Council, exerts considerable influence
in a country that remains deeply conservative despite significant changes since
the hardline Islamist Taliban fell in 2001.
But a
series of demonstrations in the capital Kabul promoting women's rights has
prompted the clerics to threaten to withdraw support for President Ashraf Ghani
in a challenge to his new government.
Some Ulema
members say that Ghani, who took office in September, has failed to consult
with them and seek their advice to the same extent that his predecessor, Hamid
Karzai, did.
Numbering
some 3,000 clerics and scholars, and headed by a 150-strong National Council,
the Ulema can sway public opinion significantly through mosques across the
country that are still the main source of Afghan social cohesion.
In recent
months, a women's rights activist walked around Kabul in a body suit with large
breasts and buttocks. In another demonstration, a group of men assembled in
public wearing all-covering blue burqas worn by most women in Afghanistan.
"We
ask the government to tell them (civil rights groups) to stop. Otherwise, we
know how to stop them," Ulema Council member Enayatullah Baligh, an
adviser to the president and university lecturer, told Reuters at his office.
"I
have 7,000 supporters who will obey any orders I give them. I can turn Kabul
city upside down."
Baligh
blamed the government, which has been hobbled by internal power struggles, for
failing to enforce laws that would require it to punish those who offended
Islam.
While
small, the protests have been unusually provocative for Afghanistan, where few
openly challenge what women's rights activists say are customs and laws that
discriminate against them and perpetuate abuses common under the Taliban.
Further
alarming the Ulema has been a much broader public outcry over the brutal
killing of a woman in central Kabul in March.
Farkhunda,
a 27-year-old Islamic student, was wrongly accused of burning a Koran, Islam's
holy book. She was beaten to death by an angry mob before her body was set on
fire and thrown on to the banks of the city's main river.
During
ensuing demonstrations, some people in the crowd shouted "Death to
Mullahs" and "Death to the Koran", language most often used to
denounce the United States.
Religious
council leader Abdul Basir Haqqani recently told a gathering that the Ulema had
been more insulted during Ghani's seven months in power than at any time in
Afghanistan's history.
"These
episodes have angered the mullahs (clerics) and I can see they are now drawing
a line between this government and the former," said Borhan Osman, a
researcher at the Afghanistan Analysts Network.
"They
see the current government as evil, a foreign conspiracy that is allowing a
struggle against Islam."
Ghani's
office sought to occupy the middle ground between religious conservatives and
activists, saying it had zero tolerance for religious offences but there had
been no evidence Islam was insulted during protests linked to the killing.
But the
Ulema believes it may not have such a close relationship with Ghani as it did
with Karzai, who backed some of its ultra-conservative demands in return for
support.
Karzai
did introduce the Elimination of Violence Against Women Law in 2009, and
oversaw the return of millions of girls to schools after they had been banned
under the Taliban.
Yet he
was criticized in 2012 for endorsing an edict that called men
"fundamental" and women "secondary", and saying they should
avoid mingling with strange men in education, bazaars and offices.
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TRIAL
On
Wednesday, an Afghan judge sentenced four men to death for their part in
Farkhunda's death, including the caretaker of a Muslim shrine who falsely
accused her of desecrating Islam's holy book.
In all,
49 men, including 19 police officers, went on trial. Some of the police were
accused of standing by and allowing the mob to kill her in broad daylight.
The
lynching shocked many Afghans and was condemned by Ghani. But before
investigators declared Farkhunda innocent of burning the Koran, some religious
figures had defended her attackers' right to protect their faith at all costs.
Civil
rights activists said they were determined to promote their cause despite the
risk of reprisals.
"What
will future generations do? Stay in the same, brutal society?" asked Leena
Alam, who played Farkhunda in a recent public re-enactment of her murder
designed to raise awareness of abuse against women. "We have to start
somewhere."
Alam said
she was hopeful Ghani would do more to protect women through tougher laws,
although he had been distracted so far by squabbling within his fledgling
government and with foreign trips seeking international support.
"Unfortunately
I haven't seen him do anything yet," she told Reuters. "We have not
seen any leader do anything for women in Afghanistan over the past 13
years."