A reality check from Afghanistan

Still no paradise for women.

From yesterday's New York Times:

An Afghan journalist was shot dead by unknown gunmen in her home north of Kabul on Tuesday night as she slept beside her 10-month-old baby, Afghan officials said Wednesday.

The journalist, Zakia Zaki, 38, was the director of a private local radio station in Jabal-us-Siraj, an hour’s drive north of the capital, Kabul. She was shot seven times, said Abdul Jabar Taqwa, the governor of Parwan Province. The baby survived.

Ms. Zaki, the mother of six children, had been receiving threats for the last few months demanding that she take the station off the air, Mr. Taqwa said. The nature of the threats was unclear, but she had been involved in women’s rights advocacy and political activity.

No one has claimed responsibility for her killing but her colleagues suspect, as the Times puts it, "wartime factions and militias."

The killing of Ms. Zaki follows another murder. Six days earlier, a local anchorwoman on a private television station in Kabul was also shot and killed - and in her home too.

In the case of the television reporter, Shekiba Sanga Amaaj, 22, the motive may have been personal.

Her father told the Times that one of her sisters had earlier escaped from an attempted kidnapping by an uncle and cousin who he claims were interested in obtaining a ransom.

In the case of his other daughter, again the cousin seems to be involved. Two men linked to this man have reportedly been arrested in connection with her death. Newscasters have speculated that she may have been killed because she refused to consent to a forced marriage.

Lovely.