"In September 1997, Emma Bonino, European Union Commissioner, requested to visit Afghanistan. The Taliban had no obligation to allow her entry, as the EU did not recognise their government. However, they granted her a visa and treated her with kindness and courtesy, as they had always done with guests, even during the dramatic period of the US aggression in October 2001, and as is the Afghan tradition. Emma was able to visit Afghanistan and see everything she wanted. On 28 September, followed by a retinue of 19 people, including EU delegates, journalists, photographers and cameramen, she entered a hospital in Kabul and headed straight for the women's ward, where the photographers began to take pictures and the cameramen began to film. This was extremely foolish behaviour because in Islamic culture the reproduction of the human figure is, in principle, forbidden. Just look at a Persian carpet; it is decorated with plants, animals and fish, but there are no human figures. And this was even more true in Taliban Afghanistan. After all, even in our country, you cannot photograph or film patients without their consent or the authorisation of the hospital management. The “Corps for the Promotion of Virtue and Punishment of Vice” arrived, grabbed Bonino and the others and took them to the nearest police station. For such an offence, the punishment was flogging with “sacred rods”. Bonino was explained how things worked in those parts and shortly afterwards she was released by the officials, who were perplexed and a little disgusted. They would have done better to flog her. With the “sacred rods”, of course. Perhaps she would have understood what, as a good Western radical, she has never understood: that the sensibilities and customs of others also deserve respect. Instead, she wanted to make an international case out of it and, back in Brussels, she got the EU to cut humanitarian funds for Afghanistan."