Fingers, the Taliban, and Sex

Taliban Threat To Chop Off Fingers Of Afghan Voters

By Ben Farmer
London Daily Telegraph
August 15, 2009

TALIBAN commanders have threatened to chop off the fingers of anyone caught voting in next week?s presidential elections. Insurgents in southern Afghanistan said fingers found bearing the indelible ink used to mark voters would be removed.

“We will know those who cast a vote from the ink, and his finger will be cut off,” a commander warned villagers in the south of the country.

The Taliban ruling council, led by Mullah Omar, has called on Afghans to boycott the election, described them as an American sham and told its fighters to block roads to polling stations.

President Hamid Karzai?s heartland is in the rural Pashtun south, where kinsmen could deliver crucial votes for his re-election campaign. But the risk of violent retribution from the Taliban and the prospect of re-electing a president who has attracted intense criticism for his policies in the final weeks of campaigning could dissuade many from turning out.

Mr Karzai faces a second round run-off because he is now unlikely to win by the 50 per cent of votes required.

As the presidential campaign entered its final week yesterday, human rights advocates accused Mr Karzai of betraying Afghanistan's women for votes after it was disclosed that he had ratified a controversial law said to condone marital rape.

The president's recent decision to free five convicted drug traffickers, including the nephew of his campaign manager, was also questioned by a minister in charge of hunting down Afghan opium lords.

Mr Karzai addressed thousands of supporters in the north-east city of Herat as it emerged that controversial legislation governing family life for the country?s Shia minority had been rushed through to become law.

The president was forced to reform the original draft in the face of international outcry earlier this year when it was found to rule that a woman had to satisfy her husband's sexual desires at least every fourth night.

But the amended version, which has quietly come into force after being published in the country?s official gazette, still maintains that a husband can stop feeding his wife if she does not submit to him.

Brad Adams, Asia director of the New York-based Human Rights Watch, said: “Karzai has made an unthinkable deal to sell Afghan women out in return for the support of fundamentalists.”

The law also grants custody of children only to fathers and grandfathers.