Afghan woman stoned to death over adultery charges
KABUL/MULTAN: A young Afghan woman was stoned to death after being accused of adultery, officials said on Tuesday, a medieval punishment apparently recorded in a video that harks back to the dark days of Taliban rule.
The 30-second clip run in Afghan media shows a woman in a hole in the ground as turbaned men gather around and hurl stones at her with chilling nonchalance.
The woman, named by officials as Rokhsahana and aged between 19 and 21, is heard repeating the ‘shahada’, or Muslim profession of faith, her voice growing increasingly highpitched as stones strike her with sickening thuds.
The killing took place about a week ago in a Taliban-controlled area just outside Firozkoh, the capital of central Ghor province, officials said, confirming the video which was sourced and released by international broadcaster Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty.
“Yes, the footage shown in the media is related to Rokhsahana, who was stoned to death,” a spokesman for Ghor’s Governor Seema Joyenda confirmed.
Rokhsahana was stoned by a gathering of “Taliban, local religious leaders and armed warlords”, Joyenda said.
Joyenda, one of only two female governors in Afghanistan, said Rokhsahana’s family had married her off against her will and that she was caught while eloping with another man her age -- seen as tantamount to adultery.
The man was let off with a lashing, Joyenda’s spokesman said.
The brutal punishment meted out to Rokhsahana highlighted the endemic violence against women in Afghan society, despite reforms since the hardline Taliban regime fell in 2001. PAK WOMAN DIES
A young Pakistani woman died on Tuesday after a rejected suitor set her ablaze for refusing his marriage proposal, a doctor said.
Sonia Bibi, 20, was admitted to hospital last month, where she told police that her former lover Latif Ahmed had doused her with petrol and set her alight after she turned down his proposal.
Medical staff had originally said she would recover, but a doctor in Multan’s Nishtar hospital said that Bibi’s injuries had become infected and that she died on Tuesday morning.
About 45 to 50% of her body had been burned in the attack, the head doctor said.