Young love ...

Lynsey Addario for The New York Times  Rafi Mohammed, 17, is held in a juvenile prison
in Herat for trying to run off with his girlfriend, Halima Mohammedi.

In Afghanistan, Rage at Young Lovers

By JACK HEALY in the New York Times Published: July 30, 2011

HERAT, Afghanistan — The two teenagers met inside an ice cream factory through darting glances before roll call, murmured hellos as supervisors looked away and, finally, a phone number folded up and tossed discreetly onto the workroom floor.

It was the beginning of an Afghan love story that flouted dominant traditions of arranged marriages and close family scrutiny, a romance between two teenagers of different ethnicities that tested a village’s tolerance for more modern whims of the heart. The results were delivered with brutal speed.

The girl's father, Kher Mohammed, with his head in his hand,
wants the government to kill her and her boyfriend.

A car burned by a crowd during a riot that took place
after the police rescued two teenagers from a group of
men who had demanded that they be hanged or stoned
for their relationship.

This month, a group of men spotted the couple riding together in a car, yanked them into the road and began to interrogate the boy and girl. Why were they together? What right had they? An angry crowd of 300 surged around them, calling them adulterers and demanding that they be stoned to death or hanged.

Read the New York Times article. It's stunning.

Understanding a culture different from your own is a challenge. As the young lady says, “We are all human. God created us from one dirt. Why can we not marry each other, or love each other?” It's a fair question.