Afghanistan: Taliban Reportedly Hang Bodies As Warning In Public

Published 16:04, 25 September 2021 BST

The Taliban are said to have hung dead bodies out in public as a warning to locals against committing crimes.

The militant group took over Afghanistan last month as the US and its allies prepared to withdraw following the years-long war in the country, and over the following weeks it has been enforcing some of the extreme rules established during its previous reign.

Earlier this week, Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, one of the founders of the Taliban, said the group would once again carry out executions and amputations of hands as punishment for crimes, claiming the latter response was ‘very necessary for security’.

Though Turabi said the punishments would now perhaps not happen in public, a witness said today, September 25, that a dead body was suspended from a crane in the main square of Herat city in western Afghanistan.

Wazir Ahmad Seddiqi, who runs a pharmacy on the side of the square, told The Associated Press four bodies were brought into the square, and three were moved to other parts of the city for public display.

The four deceased people are said to have been killed by police after being caught taking part in a kidnapping, with part of Seddiqi’s story apparently confirmed by Ziaulhaq Jalali, a Taliban-appointed district police chief, who claimed Taliban members rescued a father and son who had been abducted by kidnappers.

Jalali said ‘the four (kidnappers) were killed in crossfire’, and that a Taliban fighter and a civilian had been wounded by the kidnappers, according to AP.

Previously, executions and amputations carried out by the Taliban took place in Kabul’s sports stadium or on the grounds of the Eid Gah mosque, with displays attended by hundreds of onlookers.

Addressing the criticism the Taliban received for the punishments, Turabi said, ‘Everyone criticised us for the punishments in the stadium, but we have never said anything about their laws and their punishments. No one will tell us what our laws should be. We will follow Islam and we will make our laws on the Quran.’

Turabi has said that as opposed to previously private trials and convictions, where the judiciary was weighted in favour of Islamic clerics, trials will now be adjudicated now by judges, including women.

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Topics: News, Afghanistan, kidnapping, punishment, Taliban