A Girl Named Jasmine, the Afghan Face of Sharia Law

I’d heard a lot about stoning prior to going into the fray. I thought this would be like any other day. We sat and watched, watched and sat over the village they called home, an SR unlike any before. Finding love in the hardest city while still being so mean. Reaching for a god when man’s heart rules by law.

I never knew your name, Jasmine is just so I can put a name to a face. Fitting since I met you in the Middle East, well-watched you from where we couldn’t be seen. Like guardian angels, yet we just sat there and watched you bleed. Watched as you took it for what is a common belief, a right that many take for granted.

A picture is worth a thousand words, wonder if they saw what the shades of grey kept covered? You couldn’t be more than 13, a local village girl surrounded by the others. Men dressed in black, one stood above them all, unlike the others. He was in charge, me and Bobby could tell. We snapshots of his face and send them up, hoping one day we can send him to hell.

To this day I never knew what your true crime was. Reading? Writing? Maybe just having some fun? You were tossed to the ground like a rag worth none. The first came from a young man around your age, the impact I heard rang out louder for me than Bobby. Blood spattered across the sun landing on the first settling dust. How you survived the first I could not tell, wishing you would have died instead of hearing that yell.

The next 15 minutes were the worst. Stone after stone they walked by and bashed in your pour soul. Puddles of blood had already begun to form. Seeping into the earth turning into a dull grey/red feeding the flesh of the unknown. We sat and watched recording every second of it. So helpless and so hopeless, due to your laws. Sharia would forever allow this.

For years I didn’t remember, hidden away in a dark dark hole. Until I heard a similar story and then everything rushed home. Sitting in the car crying wondering where did everything come from, where did everything go? I watched a young girl get stoned, in the biblical sense until she didn’t scream anymore. Her breath fed the wind of death that carried all in these traditional ways. Her blood seeped into the earth which hundreds before had also fed. This is Afghanistan boys and girls, shit like this is why at times I held a gun to my throat.

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This first appeared in The Havok Journal on September 16, 2021.

Clay D is a father and veteran of 5 war zones with 9 combat deployments, 3 brothers KIA, and 1 Divorce. Most of his adult life was spent in the Middle East & South East Asia.