A YOUNG woman has been stoned to death in a Taliban-controlled area of Afghanistan after being accused of adultery, officials said.
A crowd of spectators captured the killing on their mobile phones as the woman’s pitiful cries filled the air. A video showing the punishment has been posted online.
The 30-second clip shows a woman in a hole in the ground surrounded by men wearing turbans who hurl stones at her with chilling nonchalance and increasing intensity. Her 23-year-old fiance, named as Mohammad Gul, was repeatedly lashed.
The woman, named as Rokhshana and aged between 19 and 21, can be heard repeating the shahada, or Muslim profession of faith, her voice growing increasingly high-pitched and desperate as stones strike her with sickening thuds.
The Tolo news agency reported that the woman was stoned to death about a week ago in a Taliban-controlled area in the village of Ghalmin on the outskirts of Firoz Koh, the capital of Ghor Province in the centre of Afghanistan.
The video has been sourced and released by international broadcaster Radio Free Europe.
Rokhshana and her fiance had allegedly fled from their families in a bid to find a place to be married, RFE reported.
Officials in Ghor told AFP news agency that Rokhshana was stoned by a gathering of “Taliban, local religious leaders and armed warlords”.
Provincial Governor Seema Joyenda, one of only two female governors in Afghanistan, said Rokhshana’s family had arranged for her to be married against her will.
She was allegedly caught having premarital sex with her boyfriend — an act not tolerated by many conservative Muslims in rural Afghanistan.
“This is the first incident in this area (this year) but will not be the last,” Ms Joyenda told AFP.
“Women in general have problems all over the country, but in Ghor even more conservative attitudes prevail.”
Joyenda condemned the stoning in Ghor, calling on the government based in the capital Kabul to launch a military operation to rid the area of insurgents and other armed groups.
In September a video from Ghor appeared to show a woman — covered head to toe in a veil and huddled on the ground — receiving lashes from a turbaned elder in front of a crowd of male spectators.
The flogging came after a local court found her guilty of having sex outside marriage with a man, who was similarly punished.
Death by stoning for convicted adulterers is banned under Afghanistan law, although adulterers face long prison terms. The penal code, originating in 1976, makes no provision for the use of stoning.
Capital punishment was widely practised by the Taliban regime, which ruled much of the country from 1996 to 2001, when convicted adulterers were routinely shot or stoned in executions conducted in front of large crowds.
In rural areas, where Taliban militants still exert considerable influence, some Afghans still turn to the Taliban for settling disputes. The Taliban have a strict interpretation of Shari’a law, which prescribes punishments such as stoning and executions.
The Taliban has not to date commented on the stoning in Ghor. Long condemned as misogynistic zealots, the militants have recently sought to project a softened stance on female rights.
But the insurgents’ recent three-day occupation of the northern provincial capital of Kunduz offers an ominous blueprint of what could happen should they ever return to power.
Harrowing testimonies have emerged of Taliban death squads methodically targeting a host of female rights workers and journalists just hours after the city fell on September 28.
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