Proposed penalty: Adulterers may face stoning in Afghanistan under new law

Penalty for married adulterers, along with flogging unmarried offenders, appears in a draft of country’s penal code.

KABUL:

Afghanistan is considering bringing back stoning for adultery, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the justice ministry said on Monday, possibly restoring a punishment in force during the Taliban regime.

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

Ashraf Azimi, the head of ministry’s criminal law department, confirmed to AFP that stoning to death is included in the draft. The draft provisions state that the “implementation of stoning shall take place in public in a predetermined location”. If the “adulterer or adulteress is unmarried”, the sentence shall be “whipping 100 lashes”.



“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.”

Azimi told AFP the new law was less than halfway finished. “The ministry of justice is working on a law to punish those who commit adultery, robbery and alcohol-drinking according to Sharia law,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 26^th, 2013.