Afghanistan considers reviving death by stoning for adulterers

Death by stoning for convicted adulterers could be rewritten into Afghan law, 12 years after the barbaric execution method was banished along with the Taliban regime, a senior government official has said.
Rohullah Qarizada, who is part of the sharia Islamic law committee working on the draft, said the sentence could only be passed if the act of adultery was witnessed by four people or more.

The sentence for married adulterers, along with flogging for unmarried offenders, appears in a draft revision of the country’s penal code being managed by the ministry of justice.

‘We are working on the draft of a sharia penal code where the punishment for adultery, if there are four eyewitnesses, is stoning,’ said Qarizada, who is also head of the Afghan Independent Bar Association.
It is the latest sign that human rights won at great cost since the Taliban were ousted in 2001 are rolling back as foreign troops withdraw.
‘Men and women who commit adultery shall be punished based on the circumstances to one of the following punishments: lashing, stoning [to death],’ article 21 states.

Article 23 goes on to state that stonings should be carried out in public.
Billions have been invested on promoting human rights in Afghanistan over more than 12 years of war and donors fear that hard won progress, particularly for women, may be eroding.

During the Taliban’s 1996-2001 time in power, convicted adulterers were routinely shot or stoned in executions held mostly on Fridays. Women were not permitted to go out on their own, girls were barred from schools and men were obliged to grow long beards.
Providing fresh evidence popular support for the brutal punishment has endured, two lovers narrowly escaped being stoned in Baghlan province north of Kabul, but were publicly shot over the weekend instead, officials said.
‘While they were fleeing, suddenly their car crashed and locals arrested them. People wanted to stone them on the spot but some elders disagreed,’ the provincial head of women’s affairs, Khadija Yaqeen, told Reuters on Monday.

‘The next day they decided and shot both of them dead in public. Our findings show that the woman’s father had ordered to shoot both man and woman.’

The public execution was confirmed by the provincial police chief’s spokesman, who said the killings were unlawful.
‘It is absolutely shocking that 12 years after the fall of the Taliban government, the Karzai administration might bring back stoning as a punishment,’ said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch.

The U.S. based rights group has urged funding to be tied to commitments and last month, Norway took the rare step of cutting aid on the grounds that Afghanistan had failed to meet commitments to protect women’s rights and fight corruption.
Most donors, however, have stopped short of using money to pressure President Hamid Karzai’s administration and U.S. and United Nations officials were aware of the plan to reintroduce stoning, Qarizada said.
The new law, he told Reuters, was unlikely to make stoning a common practice.

‘The judge asks each witness many questions and if one answer differs from other witnesses then the court will reject the claim,’ Qarizada said.

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