Taliban execute woman accused of adultery

Video shows woman shot five times to cheers of jubilation from the 150 or so men watching. PHOTO: FILE

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.

“When I saw this video, I closed my eyes … The woman was not guilty; the Taliban are guilty,” Salangi told Reuters.

When the unnamed woman, most of her body tightly wrapped in a shawl, fell sideways after being shot several times in the head, the spectators chanted: “Long live the Afghan mujahideen!”, a name the Taliban use for themselves.

The Taliban could not be reached for comment.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 8^th, 2012.