Afghanistan: Seeking Justice
by Joshua Foust, GlobalVoices, July 28th, 2008
Despite its reputation for a very conservative brand of Islam, Afghanistan is deeply torn. Before the recent decades of war, the country was more known for its mystical Sufism that attracted crowds of hippies and tourists than anything else; the Soviet War helped entrench a more fundamentalist brand of Islam that peaked in the Taliban; now, Afghanistan struggles mightily with its past—both recent and distant. Afghan bloggers lately have been focusing on issues of justice, given the trial of a young journalism student, the ethnic fighting in Maydan Wardak province, and even the problems of honor-killing women and suicide bombing.
The most recent news to come from Afghanistan involved the violent incursion of Kuchi nomads into Hazara farming communities in the Behsud district of Wardak province, just west and south of Kabul. Many Hazara were killed in the attack, and several thousand fled as their homes were destroyed. After a hunger strike by a prominent member of Parliament, and a large protest rally in Kabul, President Hamid Karzai ordered the Kuchi to evacuate the district. >>
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