The Comment Factory

I'm a journalist and photographer based in London.

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In the winter of 2009 an Australian primary school teacher dared to visit Afghanistan as a tourist. In this interview, Nick Buckley, 29, provides a glimpse of the other side of Afghanistan – a country still celebrating lavish weddings, and where men get drunk and watch Chuck Norris films.

Any soldier who helps with the execution is rewarded with two days holiday. There is so much competition to do this that the junior soldiers never get to do it. If, for example, eight people executed, six or seven soldiers are required for duties. The chair has to be set up, and the rope has to be fastened around the neck, and someone must pull the chair. And someone has to put the dead body in the bag. You cannot imagine how I felt as I watched the soldiers being eager to do these things