AFGHANISTAN COULD REINTRODUCE STONING AS PUNISHMENT FOR ADULTERY

November 25, 2013: Public stoning, once held up as the pinnacle of Taliban atrocity, could be reintroduced to punish adultery in Afghanistan, appearing a new draft of the country's penal code concerning "moral crimes", according to Human Rights Watch.
The Justice ministry's working group has recommended that if a couple is found by a court to have engaged in sexual intercourse outside a legal marriage, both the man and woman shall be sentenced to “[s]toning to death if the adulterer or adulteress is married.”
The 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," according to the draft seen by the human rights activists.
The pressure group is calling on international donors to withdraw funding for President Hamid Karzai's government should the stoning inclusion go ahead.
“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.”
Stoning was commonplace during the Taliban-era, from the mid-1990s to 2001, but the current government has signed international human rights conventions and pledges to protect human rights, and to advance the rights of women. (Sources: The Huffington Post UK, 25/11/2013)