Afghanistan | Thousands march through capital to protest Hazara killings

Hazara tribesmen carry the coffin of a beheaded Hazara victim during a ceremony in Kabul

Thousands of people marched through the Afghan capital yesterday, carrying the coffins of seven ethnic Hazaras who had been kidnapped and beheaded and calling for a new government that can ensure security in the country.
Protesters, holding banners with photos of the victims — who include a nine-year-old girl — rallied outside the Presidential Palace.
Holding up the green-draped coffins, they chanted “Death to the Taliban” and called on President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah to resign.
The four men, two women and child were found partially beheaded on Saturday in the southeastern province of Zabul, officials have said.
They had been kidnapped in neighboring Ghazni province up to six months earlier. Afghanistan’s spy agency dismissed Taliban claims that affiliates of the Islamic State group were behind the killings. In the past five days, rival Taliban groups have been fighting each other in the region where the bodies were found.
Ghani sent a delegation to Ghazni to investigate the killings and attend funerals, his office said. A statement described the kidnappers as “mainly non-local terrorists.”
Civil society activist Zahra Sepehr, one of the protest organizers, estimated a turnout of about 10,000, which would make it the biggest demonstration in Kabul since the killing of a young woman, Farkhunda, by a mob in March. The demonstrators included members of all Afghanistan’s ethnic groups.
“We want justice and we want this government, Ghani and Abdullah, to go so that we can have a government that protects all the people of the country and brings security to the whole country,” Sepehr told The Associated Press.
She said the deaths of the seven were evidence of the lack of security across Afghanistan. This year, the Taliban has extended its reach across Afghanistan in its fight to topple the government, and the Islamic State group is also believed to have a presence in Zabul, as well as in the southeastern Nangarhar province.
After gathering in the west of Kabul, the demonstrators walked about 10 kilometers through the rain to the gate of the Presidential Palace, where organizers said they intended to stage an open-ended sit-in.
Habibullah, the head of a local Kabul council, said the demonstration aimed to show the unity of the Afghan people, regardless of ethnicity or sect. “I’m Afghan only,” he said. “Our voice wants justice, brotherhood, sanctity of life, peace and equality. No one can tolerate any longer the situation we have in the country.”
He added that even during Afghanistan’s 1992 to 1996 civil war, which killed up to 80,000 in Kabul alone, no one was beheaded.
Hazaras, who are predominantly Shiite, have been the targets of past atrocities and this year have been the victims in a number of large-scale kidnappings. The green cloth covering the coffins symbolized that they were Shia.
The bodies of the seven victims were brought 380 kilometers to Kabul from Zabul on Tuesday. Protesters held an overnight vigil before beginning their march early yesterday.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan condemned the killings and said they could constitute a war crime. Killing and kidnapping civilians are “serious violations of international humanitarian law,” UNAMA chief Nicholas Haysom said in a statement, calling for the perpetrators to be held accountable. Humayoon Babur and Amir Shah, Kabul, AP