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Home > Taliban Cuts Off Ink-Stained Fingers of Voters in Afghanistan
Taliban Cuts Off Ink-Stained Fingers of Voters in Afghanistan
The Taliban cut off the fingers of 11 Afghan men for the “crime” of voting in the presidential election runoff. The Taliban had warned the population that the punishment would occur and to "remain far away from the polling stations... Lest you should be hurt or killed."
The men, mostly elders, had exited the polls in the Herat Province with their finger staining in ink, indicating they had voted.
Afghanistan’s Deputy Interior Minister Ayoub Salangi said in a tweet that, “The insurgents who were defeated today cut off inked fingers of 11 voters in #Herat” and that the injured were transported to the hospital.
The vote represented the first time that power will be transferred democratically in Afghanistan and saw a higher-than-expected turnout of 52 percent of the country’s estimated 13.5 million voters.
Election commission chief Ahmad Yousef Nooristani said that somewhat less than to 200 out of 6,365 polling stations were inoperable because of security threats. He was quoted as saying that the voters consisted of 62 percent men and 38 percent women.
The run off for president is between former Afghan foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah and Ashraf Ghani, a former World Bank economist. One of the two will replace current Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who has held the office since 2001.
Click here for a further report on the voting and the violence by CBS reporter Laura Logan who is embedded with Echo Company of the U.S. Marines in Afghanistan.
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