From today’s Independent :
Gayle Williams worked with the poorest and most unfortunate of the children in Afghanistan, young boys and girls who had lost limbs to landmines and bombs. She was dedicated to her task of teaching them the basic skills needed to survive in a harsh and violent land. Yesterday the thirty-four-year-old British woman was murdered while walking along a quiet, tree-lined street in Kabul on her way to work . . . .Ms. Williams had been in the country for two and a half years, working for a charity called Serve Afghanistan, which helps disabled children and adults to learn to live with their handicaps. A Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, declared that she had been executed “because she was working for an organization which was preaching Christianity in Afghanistan.” Converting from Islam to Christianity is a capital offense in Afghanistan but friends and colleagues of Ms. Williams stressed that while the organization she worked for was Christian in its beliefs, she was extremely careful not to try to convert Afghans.