Arthur Greene
Taliban courts will revive the brutal physical punishments which became notorious under the group’s previous spell in charge in Afghanistan.
The country’s new prisons minister, Nooruddin Turabi, said that the regime will carry out executions and amputations of hands and feet as punishments for crimes.
Convicted thieves for example face having one of their hands cut off while those found guilty of committing highway robbery will lose a hand and a foot.
“Cutting off of hands is very necessary for security,” Turabi said in an interview with Associated Press, arguing that the punishments are a necessary part of Islamic Law.
He also said that the harsh punishment will deter others from committing the crime, but said that the government had not yet decided whether to carry out punishments in public.
When the Taliban last ruled Afghanistan, from 1996 to 2001, the world watched in horror as convicted criminals faced amputations, stonings and executions in crowded stadiums.
Executions of convicted murderers were usually carried out by the victim’s family, by a single shot to the head, in front of hundreds of Afghan men.
The convicts’ trials, however, rarely took place in public. The power to hand down verdicts mainly belonged to Islamic clerics, whose knowledge of law was based in religion.
Turabi said that in this government, judges – which will include women – will adjudicate trials, but the foundation of the country’s law will still be based on the Qur’an.
In an all-male Taliban government full of hardline religious conservatives, Turabi has gained a reputation for being one of its fiercest enforcers.
Now in his 60s, he’s one of the group’s founding members. One of his first acts in government in 1996 was to scream at a female journalist to leave a room. When one man objected, he slapped him hard in the face.
His henchmen beat up men whose beards were trimmed, he banned sports and he had a notorious hatred of cassette tapes, having them routinely ripped out of cars and strung up on trees.
“We are changed from the past,” he said in his interview with AP this week, which was carried out by a female journalist.
This development, however, is just the latest evidence which points to a regime which is every bit as brutal as it was the last time.
Image source: @Joyce_Karam
