The fruits of extreme religious intolerance:
A girl was beheaded by Islamic State
(ISIS)
terrorists for the "crime" of being
born
into a family with a minority religion:
Webmaster's opinion (bias alert):
The next time you become aware of a person condemning any individual or group for religious reasons, or advocating reduced civil liberties for any group -- whether it be directed against:
please think of this incident, and actively criticize whoever is expressing condemnation, even if it is a member of the clergy. If you cannot openly criticize, them, as during a religious service, then please consider getting up and leaving. Then, at least this girl's death will not have been completely in vain.
If we all try to nip religious intolerance and hatred in the bud when it is merely at the verbal level, then it may not escalate and become violent behavior.
The story:
During 2015-NOV, seven people in Zabul province of Afghanistan were kidnapped and beheaded. Some news sorces blamed a group within the Taliban for the atrocity. The youngest victim was a girl, Shukria, aged nine. They were apparently executed because they followed the Hasaraz faith, which is a minority religious and ethnic group in the Middle East composed mainly of Shia Muslims.
In response, about 20,000 demonstrated in Afghanistan's streets to demand justice to those who died. They carried caskets of different sizes, one for each of the victims. They went to the presidential palace, and demanded that President Ashraf Ghani resign. According to the BBC, seven protestors were injured during the demonstration.
Protester Kamela, a 22-year-old university student referred to Afghanistans main ethic groups, saying:
"We are all here — Hazara, Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek — to demand justice. We will not go back to those days."
She referred to the previous "Taliban era" and the country's civil war in which ethnic militias turned on each other.
The United Nations condemned the kidnapping and murders as "particularly abhorrent."
Nicholas Haysom, the UN Ssecretary-general's special representative for Afghanistan, said:
"These senseless murders may amount to war crimes and the perpetrators must be held accountable."
Reference used:
The following information source was used to prepare and update the above essay. The hyperlink is not necessarily still active today.
Kenya Sinclair, "Afghanis protest ISIS beheading of 9-year-old girl," Catholic Online, 2015-NOV-11, at: https://www.catholic.org/
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