Afghanistan dispatch: Taliban execution order carried out without due process Dispatches
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Afghanistan dispatch: Taliban execution order carried out without due process

Law students and lawyers in Afghanistan are filing reports with JURIST on the situation there after the Taliban takeover. Here, a Staff Correspondent for JURIST in Kabul reports on a Taliban execution order carried out Wednesday in southwestern Afghanistan. For privacy and security reasons, we are withholding our Correspondent’s name. The text has only been lightly edited to respect the author’s voice.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid has declared in a statement that a retribution order (Qesas) has been carried out against a person in Farah province today following a court order. The spokesperson declined to explain how that order was carried out or, more crucially, whether the accused was accorded the right to a fair and impartial trial, a defense attorney, or an investigation by a prosecutor.

Such executions were carried out under the Taliban’s first period of rule in public, and with frequent gunfire. The Taliban claim that in this instance three courts judged the individual who was executed guilty and that a comprehensive investigation had been done by the courts before the execution.

After Taliban Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada ordered judges and prosecution agencies to apply Haad and Qesas for particular offences, such harsh sentences were put into place. These penalties are frequently carried out by amputation, stoning, public humiliation, and retaliation. Recently, several lashing penalties were implemented in several Afghan cities, which has infuriated human rights organizations both inside and outside of the country.

The Afghan people are deeply concerned about the laws and policies of the Taliban.

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