According to officials, Taliban authorities publicly murdered a convicted murderer by gunfire in a sports stadium on Monday, the third death punishment carried out in Afghanistan in as many days.
The guy, found guilty of a knife murder in January 2022, was executed in northern Sheberghan city under a death warrant issued by Taliban chairman Hibatullah Akhundzada, according to a Supreme Court statement.
The condemned man’s name was Nazar Muhammad, according to the statement, and his case “was thoroughly and repeatedly investigated.”
He was shot five times in front of his victim’s family, including women and children, as well as hundreds of spectators at the stadium, a local provincial official told AFP.
Since the Taliban’s restoration to power in August 2021, a small number of killings have taken place in accordance with their government’s austere view of Islam.
In 2022, Akhundzada ordered judges to fully apply all components of Islamic law, including “qisas” or “eye for an eye” punishments.
The Taliban government’s understanding of Islamic law allows for the death penalty as retaliation for murder.
Last week, two other individuals were executed in eastern Ghazni city with multiple gunshots to the back on death orders signed by Akhundzada.
According to an AFP tally, five death sentences have been carried out since the Taliban returned.
Corporal punishments, particularly whipping, have been used for a variety of crimes, including theft, adultery, and alcohol consumption.
Last week, Amnesty International described the Taliban government’s death penalty policy as “a gross affront to human dignity”.
“Carrying out executions in public adds to the inherent cruelty of the death penalty,” the organization stated.
According to Amnesty International, the world’s most prolific practitioners of the death sentence in 2022 are China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and the United States.
Law and order are key to the Taliban’s austere philosophy, which sprang from the turmoil of a civil war following the Soviet exit from Afghanistan in 1989.
Public executions were widespread during their first tenure, which ran from 1996 until 2001.
One of the most infamous photographs from that time period featured the 1999 execution of a lady wearing an all-covering burqa in a Kabul stadium. She was suspected of killing her husband.