Afghans angry at beauty queen's bikini appearance

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,2705244a12,00.html

http://www.stuff.co.nz/inl/common/imageViewer/0,1445,127180,00.jpg

BEAUTY CONTROVERSY: Miss Afghanistan, Vida Samadzai, leads other Miss Earth candidates during a press preview of the beauty contest in Manila on Thursday.
Reuters

KABUL: The Taliban has been ousted from rule in Afghanistan and its hardline Islamic policies are a thing of the past, but many Afghans have been shocked and angered by an Afghan woman appearing in a bikini at a beauty pageant.

Twenty five-year-old Vida Samadzai – the first Afghan entrant in an international beauty contest for 30 years and the first since the fall of the Taliban in 2001 – joined more than 50 other women at a hotel in Manila early this week for the Miss Earth competition.

"She is not representing Afghan women. The way she appeared is not in our Afghan culture nor is endorsed by Islam," Habiba Surabi, women's affairs minister, said in Kabul.

The slim and dark-haired Samadzai was born and raised in Afghanistan, but left for the United States in 1996 to escape the civil war and the rise to power of the Taliban's religious movement.

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[Nlighten1]

1. Well...

I don't know about you but I'm glad she did.

[Nay]

2. This poor woman better stay in the States.

She'll get stoned to death at home.

[NNN0LHI]

3. I would let her stay with me...

...but I don't think my wife would allow it.

Don

[SmileyBoy]

4. No you fucking prude, YOU don't represent Islamic culture.

You fucking totalitarian fundamentalist.

(from a Muslim)

[ant]

5. ah, liberation!

It's nice that she's free to choose and actively take part in her own degradation now.

[imax2268]

6. Hell...

I'll protect her...and the girl behind her...!

[toddzilla]

7. kind of ironic really..

women fight to be allowed the right to be objectified.

that being said.. :P

[RuB]

8. Like Karzai she'll now need American troops to protect her

because we have brought such stability to that country. Karzai and now this young lady can't trust her own people to protect her.