KABUL: Forty-nine people including policemen went on trial on Saturday over the mob killing of a 27-year-old woman accused of burning a copy of the Holy Quran, a lynching that triggered unprecedented protests.

The trial, expected to last two days, was broadcast live on television.

A frenzied crowd beat and kicked the woman, named Farkhunda, to death on March 19 and set her body on fire as several policemen looked on near a shrine in central Kabul.

Read: Afghan woman lynched over Quran-burning was innocent: minister

The attack was captured by mobile phone video and distributed online. Some of those arrested were tracked down after bragging about it on social media.

One of the men on trial, identified only as Sharifullah, described his role in the attack.

“I kicked her once or twice but did not participate in the whole thing,” he testified. “Others were asking for a match box, so I gave them my lighter.”

The broad-daylight attack proved to be a polarising incident in the conservative country. Some defended the killing as “a defence of Islam”, but others were outraged at the viciousness of the attack even before an investigation showed that Farkhunda had been falsely accused of desecrating the holy book.

Several protests against violence against women sprang up in Kabul, including one in the last week that re-enacted the attack.

It is the first time since 2001 that a popular movement has been mobilised in support of a woman. Women’s rights were enshrined in Afghanistan’s constitution after the Taliban were ousted by a US-backed military intervention, but the society largely remains deeply conservative.

Published in Dawn, May 3rd, 2015

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