On 11 July, the International Day against Stoning, brave women and men (including a 16 year old who had acid thrown on her face) marched to the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in Kabul to denounce the brutal execution of Najiba, a young woman, by the Taliban four days ago.
See more photos here and be inspired. There are some here too.
By the way, days after the execution that outraged the world, Karzai (with the blessing of coalition forces) has invited the Taliban to disarm and join the political process!
Can there be anything more outrageous?
The struggle continues…
As an aside, some reports on the execution insist that under Sharia, it is impossible to determine whether adultery has taken place because 4 witnesses are needed. They conveniently forget to mention that a confession or pregnancy suffices to prove sex outside of marriage and that is how all victims are sentenced to death. A ‘confession’ always takes place after some form of torture and abuse.
(Link of protest via Mina Ahadi)
… pregnancy suffices to prove sex outside of marriage …
Eh? Part of that is true, but how does it prove the “outside of marriage” part (unless the husband admits sterility or impotence)?
Oh. Wow. I am, quite frankly, astonished by the bravery of the women protesting. I hope that they are safer than I imagine.
Execution is state sanctioned murder. Whichever you choose to call it, it doesn’t change the fact that this is a totally inappropriate to deal with any action. Confessions derived from torture and/or abuse that result in the death penalty must be condemned in the strongest possible language. Of course, so must all forms of state sanctioned murder.
There’s a problem with language in this and similar cases. People keep calling what happened to this woman an execution.
She was murdered–publicly in front of a crowd of jeering witnesses.
The four witnesses excuse really annoys me. It implies that if four witnesses can be produced, which must occasionally happen, it is absolutely fine to execute.
I have very little patience with those who think that the occasional execution for adultery is fine provided they don’t make a habit of it. Or those who don’t then query why an all-powerful deity would make rules and then set conditions that makes them hard to enforce. Let’s be glad God didn’t forsee DNA testing.