UN and Afghan rights bodies condemn killing of female poet

The United Nations, Afghan rights groups and local intellectuals have condemned the killing of a prominent female poet, who died after a serious assault in her home in the western city of Herat on Friday. Nadia Anjuman, 25, was renowned in Afghan literary circles and had just published her first volume of poetry – Dark Flower – earlier in the year. Local police said her husband had been arrested and that an investigation is ongoing. According to the BBC, the husband has confessed that he had hit her during a row. “The death of Nadia Anjuman is indeed tragic and a great loss to Afghanistan. This killing needs to be investigated and anyone found responsible needs to be dealt with in proper accordance with the law,” Adrian Edwards, a spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) in Kabul said on Monday. Local human rights bodies, concerned that the government does not take appropriate action against those who abuse women’s abusers, demanded action against the perpetrator of Anjuman’s killing. “Unfortunately, this shocking act indicates there is increasing violence against women in our society,” Ahmad Fahim Hakim, deputy chairman of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), said, adding the security officials had not properly investigated such cases in the past. “Only condemning is not enough, the government should take strict action to avoid such violence against women in the country,” Hakim added. Khalida Khursand, a local journalist and writer in Herat, said Anjuman’s killing demonstrated that violence against women was universal in Afghanistan, even taking place in intellectual families. “Nadia was a fourth class student in the literature faculty at Herat University, while her husband had graduated from the same faculty,” she explained. Horia Mosadiq, country director for the Human Rights Research and Advocacy Consortium (HRRAC), said violence against women had not been addressed in Afghanistan and that Anjuman’s case stood as a testament to that fact.