Afghan police rescue woman from Taliban stoning

Kunduz, Afghanistan: Police in a remote northern Afghan village rescued a woman from being stoned to death after she was condemned by the Taliban for allegedly cheating on her husband, officials said on Tuesday.

Taliban militants, who often run informal justice systems in rural Afghanistan, handed down the death penalty on the woman after her husband accused her of having an affair.

“When police rescued her, she was locked in a room in a compound that was used as a Taliban base,” Sayed Sarwar Hussaini, police spokesman for Kunduz province, said.

He said the rescue operation in the village, a militant stronghold, was launched after the woman’s relatives told police the Taliban had sentenced her to death.

The husband, a supporter of the Islamic insurgent group, handed her over to the militants on Friday.

The incident happened in Dasht-i-Archi district of Kunduz, a province where the Taliban have had an active presence in recent years after they were ousted from power nationally in 2001.

“The Taliban were preparing to stone her when the police reached the compound. The Taliban ran away and the woman was rescued. She’s now in police protective custody,” Hussaini said.

Enayatullah Khaleeq, a spokesman for the Kunduz provincial administration, confirmed the rescue and give a similar account.

“Her husband was with the Taliban. He had divorced his wife and, perhaps to justify this, he accused her of cheating on him and wanted to get her killed by the Taliban.

“We are investigating this,” Khaleeq said.

The Taliban, the biggest militant group behind a 12-year insurgency in Afghanistan, implemented a harsh version of Sharia law during their rule of Kabul between 1996 and 2001, stoning women to death and chopping off thieves’ hands.

In July last year a 21-year-old woman was stoned to death in a Taliban-controlled village just 60 kilometres (35 miles) north of Kabul, sparking international condemnation.

Source: Agence France-Presse, December 10, 2013

Afghanistan considers reintroduction of public stoning for adulterers

Proposal to bring back one of the most repugnant symbols of Taliban regime is in draft revision of country's penal code.

Afghan government officials have proposed reintroducing public stoning as a punishment for adultery, Human Rights Watch said, even though the practice has been denounced both inside and outside the country as one of the most repugnant symbols of the Taliban regime.

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.

There are several references to stoning in a translated section of the draft seen by the Guardian, including detailed notes on judicial requirements for handing down the sentence.

"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. The draft goes on to specify that the stoning should be public, in article 23.

News that the government is contemplating bringing back a much-reviled punishment is unlikely to go down well with the western governments that back Kabul.

"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.

"President Karzai needs to demonstrate at least a basic commitment to human rights and reject this proposal out of hand."

The penalty violates international human rights standards that ban torture and cruel and inhuman punishment, the rights group said in statement.

Source: The Guardian, November 25, 2013

Pakistan, with thousands on death row, rules against death penalty

(Reuters) - Pakistan has scrapped plans to reinstate the death penalty, the government said on Thursday, following threats by Taliban militants to step up attacks in retaliation.

A 2008 moratorium on capital punishment imposed by Pakistan's previous government expired on June 30 and the country had been due to execute two jailed militants in August - a plan described by the Pakistani Taliban as an act of war.

"Pakistan has decided to continue with the moratorium on capital punishment since the government is aware of its international commitments and is following them," Omar Hamid Khan, an interior ministry spokesman, said.

The new government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif originally said it wanted to reinstate the death penalty in a bid to crack down on criminals and Islamist militants in a move strongly criticized by international human rights groups.

Up to 8,000 people languish on death row in dozens of Pakistan's overcrowded and violent jails.

Pakistan's moratorium drew praise because of concerns its courts and police were too inept to ensure the accused a fair trial. Pakistan did, however, break its own rules in 2012 when it executed a convicted murderer and a former army serviceman.

Source: Reuters, October 3, 2013

Pakistan to carry out first executions since 2008

Pakistan will execute four people, including two jailed militants, next week, ending a five-year moratorium on capital punishment.

The move has been condemned by the Pakistani Taliban as an act of war sure to trigger more violence.

Pakistan's new government, trying to display its resolve in fighting crime and militancy, overturned the moratorium on the death penalty in June.

A senior prison official in the southern province of Sindh said that four convicted criminals, including two militants from the radical Sunni group Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, would be hanged at the Sukkur Jail between 20 and 22 August.

Another senior jail official identified the two as Attaullah alias Qasim and Mohammad Azam alias Sharif.

Both were sentenced to death in July 2004 after being found guilty of killing Shia doctor Ali Raza Peerani in Karachi in 2001.

The Taliban responded with fury in a pamphlet distributed in the tribal regions of North and South Waziristan bordering Afghanistan where most militant groups are based.

"If the prisoners are executed it would amount to a declaration of war on the part of the PML-N's [ruling party] government," said the pamphlet.

The government of new Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif overturned the moratorium on the death penalty shortly after coming to power in a May election.

The decision was condemned by international rights groups such as Amnesty International.

"We are opposed to capital punishment. We demand that the death penalty should not be awarded to anyone," IA Rehman, head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, said.

Pakistani authorities say capital punishment is key to deterring crime as well as militancy in areas on the Afghan border, where Taliban militants launch daily attacks.

Up to 8,000 inmates are believed to languish on death row in dozens of Pakistan's overcrowded prisons.

The state of Pakistani jails jumped to the top of the government's agenda this month after a jailbreak in the northwestern city of Dera Ismail Khan in which 250 inmates escaped, including Taliban militants.

That attack came a year after a similar mass jailbreak in the northern town of Bannu.

Security has been tightened at jails around the country, but there are fears that the Taliban might be plotting similar attacks.

Source: RTE News, August 13, 2013

Afghanistan: Surge in Women Jailed for ‘Moral Crimes’

Statistics from Afghanistan’s Interior Ministry indicate that the number of women and girls imprisoned for “moral crimes” in Afghanistan had risen to about 600 in May 2013 from 400 in October 2011 – a 50 percent increase in a year and a half. Since October 2011, there has been an almost 30 percent increase overall in the number of women and girls imprisoned in Afghanistan’s prisons and juvenile detention facilities.

“Four years after the adoption of a law on violence against women and twelve years after Taliban rule, women are still imprisoned for being victims of forced marriage, domestic violence, and rape,” said Brad Adams, Asia director. “The Afghan government needs to get tough on abusers of women, and stop blaming women who are crime victims.”

In a March 2012 report, “‘I Had to Run Away’: The Imprisonment of Women and Girls for ‘Moral Crimes’ in Afghanistan,” Human Rights Watch documented that some 95 percent of girls and 50 percent of women imprisoned in Afghanistan were accused of the “moral crimes” of “running away” from home or zina (sex outside of marriage).

These “moral crimes” usually involve flight from unlawful forced marriages or domestic violence. Women and girls imprisoned on “moral crimes” charges who were interviewed by Human Rights Watch described abuses including forced and underage marriage below age 16, beatings, stabbings, burnings, rapes, forced prostitution, kidnapping, and threats of “honor killing.” Virtually none of the cases had led even to an investigation of the abuse, let alone prosecution or punishment.

“Running away,” or fleeing home without permission, is not a crime under the Afghan criminal code, but the Afghan Supreme Court has instructed its judges to treat women and girls who flee as criminals. Zina is a crime under Afghan law, punishable by up to 15 years in prison. Some women and girls have been convicted of zina after being raped or forced into prostitution.

Click here to read the full article

Source: Human Rights Watch, May 21, 2013

Afghan father executes daughter in public over 'affair'

Zarmina was executed on Nov. 16, 1999
by the Talibans in Kabul's stadium.
She was accused of adultery.

In front of 300 villagers, Halima's father shot her in the head, stomach and waist - a public execution overseen by local religious leaders in Afghanistan to punish her for an alleged affair.

Halima, aged between 18 and 20 and a mother of 2 children, was killed for bringing dishonour on her family in a case that underlines how the country is still struggling to protect women more than 11 years after the fall of the Taliban regime.

Police in the north-west province of Badghis said Halima was accused of running away with a male cousin while her husband was in Iran, and her father sought advice from Taliban-backed imams on how to punish her.

"People in the mosque and village started taunting him about her escape with the cousin," said Sharafuddin Sharaf, the Badghis provincial police chief. "A local cleric who runs a madrassa told him that she must be punished with death, and the mullahs said she should be executed in public.

"The father killed his daughter with 3 shots as instructed by religious elders and in front of villagers. We went there 2 days later but he and his entire family had fled."

Amnesty International said the killing, which occurred on April 22 in the village of Kookchaheel in Badghis, was damning evidence of how little control Afghan police have over many areas of the country.

"Violence against women continues to be endemic in Afghanistan and those responsible very rarely face justice," said Amnesty's Afghanistan researcher, Horia Mosadiq.

"Not only do women face violence at the hands of family members for reasons of preserving so-called 'honour', but frequently women face human-rights abuses resulting from verdicts issued by traditional, informal justice systems."

Police in Baghdis, a remote and impoverished province that borders Turkmenistan, said Halima had run away with her cousin to a village 30 kilometres away.

Her father found her after 10 days and brought her back home, where imams told him he must kill her in front of the villagers to assuage his family's humiliation.

A Badghis-based women's rights activist said he had seen video footage of Hamila's execution.

"On the video, she is shot 3 times in front of 300-400 people. Her brother witnesses her death and breaks down in tears," said the activist.

"She is sitting on her knees in the dust, wearing a large chador veil. A mullah announces her funeral prayers first, then her father shoots her from behind with an AK-47 at a distance of about 5 metres.

"We have learnt that a Taliban shadow governor in the region asked the mullahs to issue the death penalty for her. The local religious council first said she should be stoned to death, but since the cousin was not there, they decided she should be shot."

It is not known what happened to the cousin with whom she ran away.

The activist also said that Halima's husband had objected to the killing and tried to return from Iran before the execution.

Mirwais Mirzakwal, head of the Badghis provincial government's media department, confirmed the accounts of how Halima died but gave no further details.

Women in male-dominated Afghanistan still suffer horrendous abuse after the fall of the 1996-2001 Taliban regime, which banned them from attending school or any form of public activity.

Under the Taliban, women risked being beaten if they did not wear full burqas or if they left the house without a male escort.

In 2009, Afghanistan passed a benchmark law criminalising forced marriage, rape, beatings and other violence against women, but Amnesty and other campaigning groups say it is rarely enforced.

With international troops withdrawing next year, many Afghan women fear any advances made since 2001 will evaporate as the Taliban exerts increasing influence at local and national levels.

Mr Sharaf, the Badghis police chief, said officers were investigating Halima's killing, but no one had yet been arrested.

"We are trying to bring the perpetrators to justice," he said, admitting that authorities had only limited power in villages such as Kookchaheel. "It is a volatile place and on the border between Badghis and Herat province, and the Taliban is also active."

Source: Agence France-Presse, May 4, 2013

Six 'terrorists' hanged in mass Afghanistan executions

Kabul: Afghanistan on Wednesday executed six "criminals and terrorists", an official said, a day after eight other death row prisoners were hanged in a rare mass executions in the war-wracked country.

The Taliban, which is leading an insurgency against the Western-backed government, had warned there would be reprisals if any of their militants were executed.

President Hamid Karzai approved the executions of the six who were sentenced to death "on charges of terror, conducting attacks, explosions and organising suicide attacks", a government spokesman said in a statement.

The Taliban, who are fighting Karzai's government and 100,000 NATO troops, said if what they called "prisoners of war" were executed there would be "heavy repercussions" for government officials.

It urged the United Nations, the Organisation of the Islamic Conference, the Red Cross and international rights groups to prevent the executions.

The Taliban, ousted from power by a US-led invasion in 2001, were notorious for executing people in public for "crimes" including adultery. The executions were often carried out at half-time during games in the main football stadium in Kabul.

The European Union and international rights groups condemned Afghanistan's execution of the first eight prisoners -- described as murderers, kidnappers and rapists -- and urged Kabul to drop plans to hang any more.

"The Afghan government should end its sudden surge of executions and institute a moratorium on further executions," Human Rights Watch said.

"The weakness of the Afghan legal system and the routine failure of courts to meet international fair trial standards make Afghanistan's use of the death penalty especially troubling," it said.

Amnesty International said "the sheer number of people who could be killed by the state is a particularly shocking use of what is the ultimate cruel and inhuman form of punishment".

The EU mission in Afghanistan called on the government to commute all death sentences and to reintroduce a moratorium on executions as a first step towards abolishing capital punishment.

The government's emailed statement attached pictures of the men who were hanged and a description of the crimes for which they were convicted.

Three of the men were found guilty of organising suicide attacks in Kabul that killed eight people, two for murdering two Afghan UN employees and one for killing three provincial education officials and eight border police.

The Kabul attacks included the deaths of two foreigners and a young Afghan girl in Kabul's famed Chicken Street, a popular shopping area for expatriates, the statement said.

It was not immediately clear when the attacks took place or how long the men had been on death row.

Executions have been infrequent since the fall of the Taliban Islamist regime in 2001, but have several times involved multiple deaths.

Since 2001 there had been four sets of executions.

One man, Abdullah Shah, was executed in 2004 for murder, 15 were killed by firing squad in October 2007 and seven in 2008. Last year, two Taliban militants were executed for an attack on a bank that left 38 people dead.

Amnesty International said some 200 prisoners are reportedly on death row in Afghanistan.

A military court on Monday rejected an appeal by an Afghan soldier sentenced to death for killing five French troops in an insider attack in January -- the first such conviction for a so-called 'green-on-blue' attack, but he was not among those executed.

The foreign ministry in France, which does not use the death penalty, said at the time said it "took note" of the sentence, adding its thoughts were with the soldiers who were killed and their families.

Source: Agence France-Presse, November 21, 2012

Taliban execute Afghan man over kidnapping charges

According to local authorities in eastern Ghazni province of Afghanistan, Taliban militants hanged an Afghan man to death at Qarabagh district over kidnapping charges.

Provincial governor spokesman Fazal Sabawoon confirming the report said the accused Afghan man who was hanged to death had recently abducted an Afghan child and urged his family to pay for his freedom.

Mr. Sabawoon further added Taliban militants arrested the kidnapper five days back and asked the tribal elders to sentence the accused man for his crime.

He also said the accused man was hanged to death after the tribal elders agreed for his death penalty during a tribal session on Sunday.

This comes as Taliban group shot dead an Afghan woman around a month ago in Parwan province of Afghanistan over adultery charges.

Source: Khaama Press, August 13, 2012

Afghan Soldier's Death Sentence Stirs Controversy

KABUL—A recent death sentence for an Afghan soldier who killed five French troops is generating a controversy in Afghanistan, with insurgents hailing the man as a hero, and human-rights advocates urging clemency.

Abdul Basir, an Afghan soldier, was convicted Sunday by a military court of killing five French soldiers on a military base in the eastern Kapisa province in January, according to a statement released Wednesday by Afghanistan's defense ministry. Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Zahir Azimi said Mr. Basir would be shot dead.

Mr. Basir, whose rank wasn't given, was convicted of opening fire on unarmed French soldiers while they were training on their base. Four of them were killed outright and 15 others were injured, with one subsequently dying of his wounds. It was one of the worst such "green-on-blue" attacks—incidents in which Afghan troops turn their weapons on U.S. and coalition allies—since the war began.

Under Afghan military law, Mr. Basir can appeal his conviction.

The advocacy group Human Rights Watch urged Afghan President Hamid Karzai to commute the death sentence for the soldier.

Afghanistan's justice system "remains weak and compromised, in spite of over 10 years of donor assistance," the group said in a statement Wednesday. "It relies heavily on confessions, including some obtained through torture. Use of physical evidence is rudimentary. The independence and impartiality of judges is often undermined, especially in high-profile cases such as this one."

On a visit to Kabul on Wednesday, French Defense Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian declined to comment directly on the court's verdict, saying it was a matter of "Afghan justice." However, Mr. Le Drian reiterated France's long-standing opposition to the death penalty.

Click here to read the full article

Source: Wall Street Journal, July 18, 2012

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Taliban vow revenge for death sentence

KABUL: Afghanistan's Taliban insurgents on Wednesday threatened to kill the judges and prosecutors who sentenced an Afghan soldier to death for killing five French troops this year.

Abdul Sabor was sentenced to hang by a military court for turning his weapon on his French colleagues -- in a "green-on-blue" attack at their base in Kapisa province in January.

Four French soldiers were killed outright and 15 others were wounded -- one of whom died later from his injuries -- and the incident prompted France to speed up its planned withdrawal of troops from NATO operations in Afghanistan.

"Abdul Saboor was one of our mujahideen and we will definitely take his revenge," Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Muajhid told.

“We will target the prosecutors and judges involved in the case of this hero mujahid. We will use every tactic including suicide attacks to kill those judges and prosecutors," he said.

Human Rights Watch has urged France to ask the government of Afghanistan to commute the death sentence passed on the soldier.

The US-based rights group pointed out that France had abolished the death penalty and as a member of the European Union campaigns for its abolition globally.

"The French government abolished the death penalty in 1981," Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

"France should embrace the same principles in this case... as it demonstrates within France by urging President Karzai to commute Sabor's sentence."

On Tuesday the French foreign ministry "took note" of the sentence, saying its thoughts were with the soldiers who were killed and their families.

Source: Agence France-Presse, July 18, 2012

Death penalty for Afghan soldier who killed French troops

An Afghan soldier who killed five French soldiers in January has been sentenced to death by a military court, officials say.

Abdul Saboor opened fire on French forces during a joint operation in a remote part of Kapisa province. He was overpowered before he could flee.

A few days later, France announced it would speed up its troops withdrawal.

There have been a growing number of cases where Afghan soldiers have killed their Nato colleagues.

At least 26 foreign troops have been killed in 18 incidents this year in the so-called "green-on-blue" killings, which have a damaging effect on morale.

At the time of the shootings, officials said that the Afghan soldier opened fire after a "verbal clash" on 20 January, while Afghan and French troops were hunting down a local Taliban commander.

Four soldiers were killed instantly and a fifth died later of his injuries. Many others were also injured and an intelligence agent told the BBC that Saboor had fired 120 bullets.

Officials say that Saboor has the right to appeal against the sentence. He is believed to be the first Afghan soldier to have been captured and sentenced for shooting dead foreign forces.

Click here to read the full article

Source: BBC News, July 17, 2012

Taliban publicly execute woman near Kabul: officials

Zarmina was executed on Nov. 16, 1999
by the Talibans in Kabul's stadium. More here.

KABUL (Reuters) - A man Afghan officials say is a member of the Taliban shot dead a woman accused of adultery in front of a crowd near Kabul, a video obtained by Reuters showed, a sign that the austere Islamist group dictates law even near the Afghan capital.

In the three-minute video, a turban-clad man approaches a woman kneeling in the dirt and shoots her five times at close range with an automatic rifle, to cheers of jubilation from the 150 or so men watching in a village in Parwan province.

"Allah warns us not to get close to adultery because it's the wrong way," another man says as the shooter gets closer to the woman. "It is the order of Allah that she be executed".

Provincial Governor Basir Salangi said the video, obtained on Saturday, was shot a week ago in the village of Qimchok in Shinwari district, about an hour's drive from Kabul.

Such rare public punishment was a painful reminder to Afghan authorities of the Taliban's 1996-2001 period in power, and it raised concern about the treatment of Afghan women 11 years into the NATO-led war against Taliban insurgents.

Click here to read the full article

Sources: Reuters, Chicago Tribune, July 7, 2012

(Warning: Graphic Content)

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Woman and two children beheaded in Afghan “honor killings”

A 30-year-old woman and two of her children were beheaded overnight in Afghanistan’s east, police said, in what appeared to be the latest in a rapidly growing trend of so-called honor killings.

Police said they suspected the woman Serata’s divorced husband of barging into her house in the capital of Ghazni province and murdering her, alongside their eight-year-old son and nine-year-old daughter.

“The children saw the killer take their mother’s head off, so he killed them too,” a local policeman told Reuters, adding that the attacker had spared Sereta’s two-year-old daughter.

Activists say there has been a sharp rise in violent attacks on women in Afghanistan over the past year.

They blame President Hamid Karzai’s waning attention to women’s rights as his government prepares for the exit of most foreign troops in 2014 and seeks to negotiate with the Taliban, Afghanistan’s former Islamist rulers.

Excluding Serata’s beheading, there have been 16 cases of “honor killings” recorded across the country over March and April, the first two months of the Afghan new year, according to Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC).

This compares to the 20 cases recorded for all of last year, said commissioner Suraya Subhrang, blaming increased insecurity and weak rule of law for the sharp rise. Since AIHRC started recording such killings in 2001, there have never been more than 20 cases a year.

“And there are many that go unreported. Men make a quick decision in their own courts to kill a girl and hold a prayer for her the next day,” Subhrang told Reuters.

Serata divorced her husband Mohammad Arif, 38, a year ago after enduring almost a decade of domestic abuse, said Shukria Wali, head of Ghazni’s department of women’s affairs, which is attached to the ministry in Kabul.

Police said they were still hunting for Arif. Violent crimes against women often go unpunished in Afghanistan, with activists blaming police carelessness, corruption and a growing atmosphere of impunity.

Officers investigating the case described it as an honor killing - a phrase used to describe the murder of mostly women and girls by people who accuse them of besmirching a family’s reputation.

Afghan women have won back basic rights in education, voting and work since the austere rule of the Taliban was toppled just over a decade ago, though fear now mounts that freedoms will be traded away as Kabul and Washington seek talks with the Islamist group to secure a peaceful end to the war.

Donors are expected to commit just under $4 billion in development aid annually to Afghanistan at a summit in Tokyo on Sunday, though the European Union - the biggest contributor - has said maintaining its support will be difficult if women’s rights are not protected.

During its five-year reign, the Taliban banned women from most work, denied them the right to vote and ordered that they wear a head-to-toe burqa when out of the house.

Despite more than 10 years of war and billions of dollars in foreign aid, the country remains desperately poor. Female illiteracy rates in rural areas are above 90 percent and child marriages are still widespread despite being illegal.

Sources: Alarabiya, Reuters,

Afghanistan: Taliban's bloodsoaked stadium re-opens as 'peaceful place'

Zarmina was executed on Nov. 16, 1999
by the Talibans in Kabul's stadium. More here.

Its pitch, they said, was so bloodsoaked that grass would not grow. For years, the only spectacles on offer at the Ghazi Stadium in the Afghan capital were executions, stonings and mutilations by the Taliban, rulers of the country from 1996 to 2001.

On Thursday, thousands of young Afghan athletes wearing soccer uniforms, boxing and running warmup gear, and the belted white suits of martial artists, came to the stadium to celebrate its official re-opening.

This time, the grass has been ripped up and replaced with bright green artificial turf, part of a U.S.-funded stadium refurbishment.

"Of all the international projects implemented in Afghanistan, this is one of the most popular, it enjoys the support of all Afghans," said Lieutenant General Mohammad Zaher Aghbar, president of Afghanistan's National Olympic Committee, and a goalkeeper with the army's soccer team for five years.

"The place that once was used to execute people during the Taliban, and then football played on their blood, is now turned into a peaceful place," he said.

"Sport helps societies get together, it will strengthen our national solidarity," Aghbar said, adding that he was trying to line up foreign boxing and soccer teams to come to Ghazi Stadium in early 2012.

Ghazi, a title normally used to describe Muslim warriors who slay non-believers in battle, is a title also bestowed by many Afghans on those who fought the British army to win independence for Afghanistan in the early 20th century.

During the opening ceremony, the commander of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and U.S. troops in Afghanistan, U.S. General John Allen, and other military officials were presented with medals.

'Terrible things'

The new artificial pitch will be certified by world soccer governing body FIFA, allowing matches in the Kabul stadium to be internationally recognised.

"It's very important because the stadium has been renovated, it's now ready for use by athletes. During the Taliban days it was used for terrible things, and today its renaissance has begun. It's a really positive day for Afghanistan," said a U.S. embassy spokesperson.

As athletes began to parade around the stadium, Zabiullah, a 58-year old Afghan journalist who witnessed the Taliban executions, pointed at what is now the corner of a penalty area, marked by neat white lines.

"There was thief who stole something from his village ... they cut his hand, right here," he said. "A man and a woman were having illegal sexual relations. They were caught, brought here, given 100 lashes each and told to marry each other ... I also saw people beheaded and shot. Afghans will never forget these bad memories.

"Now, men and women, girls and boys, can watch a peaceful match together."

Source: Reuters, December 15, 2011

Afghan mother and daughter stoned and shot dead after Taliban accused them of ‘moral deviation and adultery’

Armed men stoned and shot dead a widow and her daughter in Aghanistan after the Taliban accused the women of 'moral deviation and adultery', according to reports.

The killing happened on Thursday in the Khawaja Hakim area of Ghazni city, the BBC reported, and 2 men have now been arrested.

Officials - who blamed the Taliban for the attack - told the Corporation that armed men went into the house where the 2 women lived, took them to the yard outside and they were stoned and then shot.

'Neighbours did not help or inform the authorities on time,' an official told the BBC.

A neighbour of the executed women told M&G.com he heard shots but was afraid to go out.

'When the women in the neighbourhood washed the bodies of the killed women, they saw signs of stoning, and the doctors at the local hospital also confirmed to us,' the man, named only as Rahimullah, said.

However, Ghazni provincial police chief Zilawar Zahid denied the reports that the women were stoned to death.

He told reporters: 'They were killed inside their house.

'An investigation is under way to find out why they were killed and Afghan police have arrested 2 men in connection with the case.'

Officials told the BBC that religious leaders had been issuing fatwas - edicts - asking for reports on anyone who was 'involved in adultery'. Earlier this year horrific video footage emerged of Taliban insurgents stoning a couple to death for alleged adultery in northern Afghanistan.

It took place in the district of Dashte Archi, in Kunduz, and was met with outrage in the West.

However, a Taliban spokesman defended the practice, saying: ‘Anyone who knows about Islam knows that stoning is in the Koran, and that it is Islamic law.

'There are people who call it inhuman - but in doing so they insult the Prophet. They want to bring foreign thinking to this country.'

Source: Daily Mail, November 11, 2011

Video of Taliban 'executing Pakistan police'

The Taliban has released a video of Pakistan policemen being executed by firing squad after being captured in the northwest, the Pakistani police have said.

A senior police official told the AFP news agency that the video [warning: graphic content] was filmed on June 1, when the Taliban besieged a police checkpost in Upper Dir, about 6km from the border with Afghanistan's Kunar province.

The footage, parts of which have been aired by Pakistani TV channel Geo and which is available on LiveLeak.com, shows at least 15 men standing on a hillside in traditional civilian dress with hands tied behind their backs.

A commander and other apparently Taliban fighters, also wearing shalwar khamis, but armed with Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenades, stand in front of the apparent policemen, none of whom are wearing uniform.

The commander then delivers a brief speech, declaring the policemen enemies of Islam and deserving of death.

"These are the enemies of Allah's religion and have left Islam. Allah orders to kill such people," he says, speaking in the local Pashto language.

"We arrested them in fighting here. They killed six innocent children in [the northwestern valley of] Swat in the same way," he claims.

The commander and his fighters then open fire on the men. They later pump bullets at close-range into the bodies which are still moving.

'Pre-dawn attack'

Mian Iftikhar Hussain, information minister for Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, said the video was taken in Upper Dir, where officials said Taliban crossed the border from Afghanistan to attack Pakistani police.

Mir Qasim Khan, police chief for Upper Dir district, put the number of victims in the video at 18, saying they were policemen and paramilitary police captured on June 1.

"It was a pre-dawn attack and that's why most of them are not wearing uniform," he said.

The Taliban was not reachable for comment on Monday.

Another police official said at the time that 500 fighters, including Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, took part in the attack, which began before dawn on June 1 and continued throughout the next day.

Taliban and other armed groups have carved out strongholds on both sides of the porous Afghanistan-Pakistan border, a region that the United States has called one of the most dangerous places in the world.

Upper Dir borders the region where the Pakistan military waged a major offensive against the local Taliban in Lower Dir, Buner and Swat in 2009.

Source: Al Jazeera, July 18, 2011

Related article:

Death Penalty News: Brutal Execution by Pakistani Army in Swat

Sep 30, 2010

The video appears to have been taken in the Swat Valley, where the Pakistani military opened a campaign last year to push back Taliban insurgents. The effort was widely praised by American officials and financed in large ...

http://deathpenaltynews.blogspot.com/

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Two hanged in Kabul

2 men convicted of killing more than 40 people in a February siege on a bank in the eastern city of Jalalabad were hanged in a prison Monday in rare executions ordered by Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

The hangings, which came as Karzai's government is in the midst of a faltering effort to negotiate with Taliban insurgents, were condemned in a statement from the Taliban, who vowed "to target all those individuals and government organizations involved in this case."

Karzai signed the death warrants Sunday amid intense public pressure after Afghanistan's highest court ruled last week that the 2 men — an Afghan and a Pakistani — should face the death penalty. The hangings were carried out secretly, unlike the Taliban, who often have staged public executions such as stonings and beheadings.

On Feb. 19, a group of suspected Taliban insurgents stormed a Kabul Bank branch in Jalalabad, eastern Afghanistan's biggest city and the capital of the province that borders Pakistan. Equipped with guns and explosive vests, they killed more than 40 people, shooting many at point-blank range in a massacre that stunned even this war-weary nation. Dozens of others were wounded.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which was aimed at police officers who were collecting their salaries. Afghan security forces arrested 2 of the assailants.

Security camera footage from the bank showed one of the attackers, wearing a police uniform — a common tactic among Taliban insurgents — firing an automatic rifle indiscriminately inside the bank. Afghan security forces identified the man as Zar Ajam, a resident of the Waziristan region of Pakistan, and said he'd told police that he enjoyed killing people.

Another man, whom police identified as Mateollah, from Afghanistan's Kunar province, also was hanged Monday. A second Afghan, whom security officials named as Dad Mohammad, was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The Afghan intelligence directorate confirmed the hangings in a statement.

Many Afghans complained about the delay in punishing the people responsible for the attack, but Faiz Ahmad Najeebi, the spokesman for the Justice Ministry, said the judicial process required time.

Some complained that the hangings weren't conducted in public, as many victims' families and Jalalabad residents had demanded.

"It was good they were hanged, but they should have been hanged publicly so that the entire world could watch them and to make them a lesson for others," said Mohammad Hassan, a resident of Jalalabad.

Hassan also complained that instead of a 20-year sentence, Dad Mohammed, who was thought to have sheltered the assailants in his home, should have received the death penalty.

The intelligence directorate said in a statement that the body of the Pakistani man would be given to Pakistani officials in Kabul and that of the Afghan man would be handed over to his family in Jalalabad.

Karzai's decision came amid an escalating war of words with his U.S. allies. The mercurial Afghan leader railed Saturday against American conduct of the war, saying that U.S.-led coalition forces must stop imprisoning Afghans and conducting night raids and house searches.

The American ambassador to Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, followed the next day by criticizing Afghan leaders for what he termed "hurtful and inappropriate" comments that misrepresented the U.S. mission.

"When we hear ourselves being called occupiers and worse, our pride is offended and we begin to lose our inspiration to carry on," Eikenberry said.

Source: McClatchy Papers, June 20, 2011

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Taliban insurgents stone a couple to death for alleged adultery in northern Afghanistan

Video footage shows Siddqa, 25, covered
completely by a blue burkha, buried up to her
waist in the ground as a crowd of people watches on

Horrific video footage has emerged of Taliban insurgents stoning a couple to death for alleged adultery in northern Afghanistan.

Hundreds of villagers can be seen on the video standing around as 19-year-old Siddqa, is buried up to her waist in a hole in the ground.

Two mullahs pass sentence before the crowd begins to throw rocks at her head and body as she desperately tries to crawl free.

After the 25-year-old collapsed to the ground, covered in blood, miraculously still alive, a Taliban fighter then shot her three times.

Her alleged lover, Khayyam, is then marched in front of the crowd with his hands tied behind his back.

He was blindfolded and crouched down close to the ground as he tried to protect his body from the stones.

But he is battered to the floor by a barrage of rocks, before falling silent.

The stoning took place in the district of Dashte Archi, in Kunduz, last August.

Siddqa had run away after being sold into an arranged marriage for $9,000. She eventually ran off with her older lover.

The area remains under Taliban control, but regional police have said those behind the stoning will be charged.

Police chief General Daoud Daoud told the BBC: 'Special police investigators will be sent there, we will find them and they will be brought to justice.'

Most of the video has not been shown because it was too graphic.

The couple are believed to have eloped to Pakistan, but were lured back with the false promise that they would not be harmed.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid defended the stoning.

He told the BBC: 'Anyone who knows about Islam knows that stoning is in the Koran, and that it is Islamic law.

'There are people who call it inhuman - but in doing so they insult the Prophet. They want to bring foreign thinking to this country.'

Source: Mail Online, January 27, 2011


Video of the execution (Warning: graphic content)



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'Thousands rally over blasphemy law in Pakistan'

KARACHI — More than 20,000 people rallied in Pakistan's southern city of Karachi on Sunday, police said, against proposed amendment to blasphemy laws that were recently used to sentence a Christian woman to death.

The protest follows Tuesday's assassination of the governor of Punjab province, Salman Taseer, by one of his bodyguards, after the politician sought to reform the law that gives the death penalty for defamation of the Prophet Mohammad.

Pakistan's most high-profile political killing in three years has bitterly divided the country, horrifying moderates but winning praise from religious scholars and lawyers who festooned the presumed killer in garlands.

Two senior police officers in Karachi said more than 20,000 protesters had joined the rally and more were arriving, while senior police official Irshad Sehar told AFP that more than 30,000 people were taking part.

Banners at the event included some supporting Taseer's presumed killer, police commando Malik Mumtaz Hussain Qadri, who has been praised by religious conservatives for shooting his boss outside an Islamabad coffee shop.

"Mumtaz Qadri is not a murderer, he is a hero," said one banner in the national Urdu language.

"We are ready to sacrifice our lives for the dignity of the Prophet Mohammad," read another.

Activists at the rally, which has been organised by conservative religious groups, called for "Jihad" or holy war.

The protest forced the closure of the city's main road and all markets in the teeming southern metropolis.

Controversy over the law flared when former information minister Sherry Rehman tabled a private member's bill in November, calling to end the death penalty for blasphemy, after a Christian mother-of-five was sentenced to hang.

Rights activists also say the law encourages Islamist extremism in a nation already beseiged by Taliban attacks.

Politicians and conservative clerics have been at loggerheads over whether President Asif Ali Zardari should pardon Asia Bibi, the Christian mother who was sentenced to death under the blasphemy law.

Pakistan has yet to execute anyone for blasphemy, but Bibi's case has exposed the deep faultlines in the conservative country

Bibi was arrested in June 2009 after Muslim women labourers refused to drink from a bowl of water she was asked to fetch while out working in the fields.

Days later, the women complained that she made derogatory remarks about the Prophet Mohammed. Bibi was set upon by a mob, arrested by police and sentenced on November 8.

Most of those convicted of blasphemy in Pakistan have their sentences overturned or commuted on appeal through the courts.

Rights activists and pressure groups say it is the first time that a woman had been sentenced to hang in Pakistan for blasphemy.

Only around three percent of Pakistan's population of 167 million are estimated to be non-Muslim.

Source: Agence France-Presse, January

Below: Video: Thousands rally in Pakistan over blasphemy law, Al Jazeera

Former Australian soldier Robert Langdon escapes execution in Afghanistan

Robert Langdon (center) in Kabul

A former Australian soldier sentenced to 20 years in a notorious Afghan jail will be lucky to survive the term, his lawyer says.

But lawyer Stephen Kenny is hopeful his client Robert Langdon's punishment for murder will be reduced.

Langdon, 39, has been spared the death penalty after an appeal and a compensation payment and jailed for 20 years for shooting dead a colleague while protecting a supply convoy under attack from the Taliban in 2009.

Mr Kenny says 20 years in Pol-e-Charkhi jail is tantamount to a death penalty but he hopes further appeals may reduce Langdon's sentence.

"I am hopeful is all I can say," Mr Kenny told ABC News 24 on Thursday.

"The prison in Afghanistan is of course not as good as prisons in Australia - so 20 years in Pol-e-Charkhi in Kabul, you'd be very lucky to survive."

Mr Kenny said the death sentence was commuted after an agreement was settled with the victim's family to provide compensation, known as ibra, and for them to provide forgiveness to his client.

Langdon, from South Australia, was employed by US-based Four Horsemen International as a security contractor when he shot the Afghan security guard.

Mr Kenny said Langdon maintains he acted in self-defence and in fear of his life.

"It was a dispute about whether a convoy should remain in a particular area that Mr Langdon believed was quite dangerous, there were some further complicated reasons that I don't wish to comment on at this stage," he said.

The lawyer said Langdon regretted throwing a grenade into a truck afterwards, thus destroying evidence.

"He now regrets that he did not take the body with him but it was, in terms of destruction of trucks, a standard procedure used in insecure places in Afghanistan."

Mr Kenny has not seen Langdon since May when his client appeared worried and had lost a lot of weight.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard welcomed the fact that Langdon will not face the death penalty.

"We as a government, indeed as a nation, we are opposed to the death penalty," Ms Gillard told reporters in Perth.

"We intercede for Australians around the world who may face the death penalty and register our nation's strong opposition to it."

Consular officials visited Langdon in prison as late as December 28, one of 18 visits made by Australian embassy staff in Kabul as they facilitate visits and delivered supplies.

Langdon's family in South Australia declined to comment when contacted by AAP.

Source: AAP, January 6, 2011