http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2010/08/2010816171115397111.html
Monday, August 16, 2010
21:10 Mecca time, 18:10 GMT
Afghan couple stoned to death
The incident was the first confirmed stoning since the fall of the
Taliban in 2001[AFP]
The Taliban in Afghanistan has publicly stoned to death a man and a woman over
an alleged love affair, government officials said.
Sunday's execution is the first by the Taliban in the Kunduz province and
follows last week's call by Afghan clerics for a return to sharia and capital
punishments under Islamic law.
Hoda Abdel-Hamid, Al Jazeera's correspondent in the Afghan capital, Kabul, said
a local Taliban commander confirmed that the man was a married 28-year-old,
while the woman was in her early twenties, engaged to marry someone else.
"The couple were brought into an open field and about 100 Taliban or supporters
of the Taliban gathered and began stoning them just after a Taliban supporter
read out a statement of their confession."
The incident comes a week after officials alleged that a woman accused of
adultery was flogged and executed in the northwestern Badghis province.
Condemnation
Amnesty International has condemned the latest executions.
"The stoning of this couple is a heinous crime. The Taliban and other insurgent
groups are growing increasingly brutal in their abuses against Afghans," Sam
Zarifi, the rights group's Asia-Pacific director, said in a press statement.
"Afghan leaders must stand against stoning and other appalling human rights
abuses masquerading as 'justice', no matter how much pressure they are under to
deal with the Taliban."
On Monday, a spokesman for Nato-led forces criticised the Taliban for carrying
out what he said were acts of indiscriminate violence against ordinary Afghans.
"They have increased acts of violence and repression against innocent Afghans,"
Brigadier General Josef Blotz told reporters.
"The insurgents have clearly given up winning over the population, knowing that
they don't have an appealing vision for the people."
