Video of Afghan police laughing while forcing a cross-dressing man to strip has gone viral, being viewed over 44,000 times in just one day.
Filmed near Kabul earlier this month and uploaded to LiveLeak.com Saturday, the eight-minute video shows Afghan National Police humiliating the man nearly to the point of tears as they demanded he remove layer after layer.
The man was seen removing his wig and robe, revealing a red dress that would typically be worn by an Afghan woman.
As the police laugh out loud, the man begged, "Don't make fun of me," according to The Daily Mail.
The officers then insisted that he remove his fake breasts, which turned out to be two dough-filled socks.
"Dough to make the breasts feel softy-soft," one officer chuckled.
"Why are you dressed like this? Where did you put the makeup on? What is all this about? What have you two been up to?" two of the officers asked.
"I was shopping for clothes," the crossdresser replied, insisting that he hadn't "committed any crime."
The Guardian's Nushin Arbabzadah determined that the man was eventually arrested. A cross-dresser is often referred to by the derogatory term "ezak" in Afghanistan, where the practice is illegal.
"From the officers' tone it was evident that they felt proud of the arrest, believing they had protected ordinary families from a couple of 'dangerous perverts,'" Arbabzadah wrote.
"It is true that different cultures create distinctive personality traits, but as the case of the unlucky Afghan transvestite revealed, such non-standard but deeply felt psychological needs are universal, with transvestites from the dusty roads of Kabul to the sparkling clubs of New York feeling the same urge to dress up as women with or without society's approval," she added.
