If this really had been an “Islamophobic hate crime,” of course, it would be front-page news all over the world. As it is, since the perpetrators were most likely jihadists, it will get no notice beyond this story. “Attackers ‘gouge out Afghan man’s eyes,'” from AP, October 27:
Armed assailants have attacked a man, gouging out his eyes in front of his family in southern Afghanistan, officials say….
Ghulam, 52, said three armed men knocked on his door in the Sangin district of Helmand province late Thursday. After he opened the door, they punched him in the face, put the barrel of a Kalashnikov rifle in his mouth and gouged out his eyes with a knife in the presence of his wife and seven children….
Daoud Ahmadi, the spokesman for Helmand’s governor, blamed Taliban fighters for the attack, saying the militants often kill innocent Afghans.
“This guy Ghulam was just a normal man, a farmer,” Ahmadi said.
“He didn’t have any link with the government or NATO forces. He was a normal man, but these killers took out his eyes in front of his family. I don’t know what kind of heart these killers have.”
Taliban spokesman Qari Yousef Ahmadi denied that Taliban fighters were involved….
Ghulam, whose head was almost completely wrapped in a large white bandage, said his attackers were wearing black turbans on their head like many Taliban fighters, but that he didn’t know who carried out the attack.
Taliban militants sometimes carry out harsh punishments for people they accuse of being thieves or “spies” for the Afghan government. Such punishments have included cutting off people’s hands or tarring and parading them publicly, but few reports of people having their eyes gouged out have surfaced in Afghanistan in recent years.