20/11/08
Afghans, encouraged by President Hamid Karzai’s decision to execute seven convicted criminals this month, are calling for a return to Taliban-era public executions to deal with a surge in crime. Rights groups and some of the governments funding post-Taliban Afghanistan recoiled at the executions, the first batch in a year, saying shortcomings in the notoriously inefficient and corrupt judicial system cast doubt on the legitimacy of trials. But Afghans wholeheartedly welcomed them, with one newspaper praising the move in an editorial entitled Thank you, Mr President. A council of women in the capital late last month called on Karzai to go one step further and have death sentences – usually by firing squad or hanging – carried out in public, as they were under the 1996-2001 Taliban regime.
See: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24675834-25837,00.html
Tags: Afghanistan, Capital Punishment