The Killing of Farkhunda Our World

interview with the family of one the perpetrators. This has some graphic

and highly disturbing scenes of violence from the outset.

On the 19th of March this year Farkhunda Malikzada was brutally

Beaten to death in the centre of Kabul, as hundreds of people

It was alleged she had burned the Koran.

The killings sparked a wave of unprecedented protests

For the first time, we speak to the family of one of

It was just before Afghan New Year, a major holiday in the calendar.

Farkhunda, a 27-year-old woman living in Kabul, was leaving

Farkhunda offered to help her mother with the preparations for the

New Year festivities when she got back from class.

Just down the road from the Shah-Do Shamshira Mosque

in the centre of town, a young man - Yaqoob - was helping out in his

It was lunchtime, and Farkhunda also found herself

She had decided to take a detour to the shrine in the Shah-Do

She said her prayers and then got into a conversation with

a caretaker, who was selling charms - paper bearing Koranic verses

Farkhunda disapproved of the custom, considering it un-Islamic.

It is believed she was trying to persuade the caretaker to stop

selling the chance when he began to shout, "This woman is an American,

This video shows Farkhunda denying that she has burned the Koran,

The police try to disperse the crowd, firing gunshots in the air.

Farkhunda is on the ground, surrounded by policemen.

The images which follow are graphic and very

Again, she is photographed. and move her away from the mob to

But what happens next is documented in graphic and distressing detail.

Videoed on the mobile phones of those who stood and watched.

The police try to push the attackers away from Farkhunda.

In this disturbing footage, she is pulled up onto the roof,

They beat her, but she manages to stand up.

What happens next is too upsetting to show.

Farkhunda pleads with them to stop, but the men kick her over.

They ran Farkhunda over with this car.

She is dragged down the street some 200 metres, until her body is

dumped in front of the shop where Yaqoob is working that day.

Yaqoob runs out to find out what the commotion is, and he joins in,

punching Farkhunda, as others kick and stamp on her.

Then they drove Farkhunda onto the riverbed and Yaqoob,

dressed in brown, joins others to stone her with large slabs of rock.

The police put them on TV, to publicly say Farkhunda was

The authorities told them to get out of Kabul, for their own safety.

News of Farkhunda's killing that afternoon spread quickly.

Those who had videoed her murder uploaded the footage to social media

for all to see - some of them bragging of their involvement.

Farkhunda's killing was immediately endorsed on social media

This, despite President Ashraf Ghani strongly condemning the attack.

The next day a few women's rights activists

organised a vigil for Farkhunda, but were met with reluctance

Earlier that day, though some did condemn it, a number

of imams endorsed Farkhunda's murder in their Friday sermons.

Little wonder, then, that the killers seemed to think

they could commit such an heinous crime with impunity.

They were wrong - the police began arresting people.

Yaqoob's father spent the day after Farkhunda's murder going

from one police station to another, trying to find his son.

All he knew was that he had been arrested.

Farkhunda's brutal murder in the heart of Kabul was going

But the charred ground where she was set alight was a shocking,

The authorities announced that she had not burned the Koran.

Officials who had endorsed her killing, some of whom were sacked,

retracted their comments, as did the imams.

The religious elite condemned her murder.

Farkhunda's family said their daughter had never suffered

from mental illness, and they returned to Kabul to bury her.

Her mother watched the videos of her death.

Three days after Farkhunda's murder, more than 1,000 people gathered

The public mood over her death transformed into one of grief

The carrying of the coffin by women was unprecedented in Afghanistan.

In the days after Farkhunda's murder, protesters filled the

streets of Kabul in their thousands, marching to the Supreme Court,

demanding justice for Farkhunda and an end to violence against women.

Women, joined by men, in some of the largest protests

Some of the women marched with their faces painted red, in memory

As Farkhunda started to become an icon for activists,

the world learned more of who she was - a deeply religious woman,

a student of Islamic law - a bitter irony that she had been branded

Just days before her death, she was making plans for university.

Yaqoob was charged with murder and disrespecting a corpse.

His parents condemned the mob killing of Farkhunda when it was

But they argued that their son punched Farkhunda and stoned her

They say Yaqoob is innocent of murder.

Yaqoob's parents say he was only 16 at the time of the attack, a minor.

Yaqoob was one of 49 men charged in connection with Farkhunda's killing.

19 of them were policemen, who were on duty that day.

Six weeks after Farkhunda's murder, the trial began.

Activists hoped this would be a defining moment for Afghanistan -

upholding the rule of law, and doing it with transparency.

The proceedings were broadcast live on national television.

The trial, at which Farkhunda's mother spoke, was unusually swift.

11 police officers were sentenced to one year in prison for

Eight civilians were given 16 years in prison, and four death

Including the charm seller, who had instigated the attack

On the riverbed where Farkhunda was set alight,

She has been given the status of martyr in Afghanistan,

an honour usually only bestowed on fallen soldiers.

But will her horrific killing and the reaction to it change anything?