Human Rights Watch asks for donations to be withheld if the law passes

Nov 26, 2013 16:24 GMT  ·  By
Draft revision of Afghanistan’s penal code stipulates convicted adulterers should be publicly stoned to death
   Draft revision of Afghanistan’s penal code stipulates convicted adulterers should be publicly stoned to death

Afghanistan is considering legalizing the stoning of convicted adulterers, the Human Rights Watch has learned. The bill proposal appears in a draft revision of the penal code and, if it’s passed into law, HRW is asking for donors to withhold all support to the local government.

As per the stipulation, if the convicted adulterers are married, both will be stoned to death publicly. If they are not married, the punishment will be less “severe” because they will only be flogged in public view.

“The provisions state that the ‘“implementation of stoning shall take place in public in a predetermined location.’ If the ‘adulterer or adulteress is unmarried,’ the sentence shall be ‘whipping 100 lashes’,” the draft revision reads, as cited by the HRW.

To send a message to the country’s authorities that such acts of cruelty should never be accepted in a civilized society, let alone protected by law, HRW is asking donors to stop all funds towards the government.

Afghanistan has ratified The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and has thus agreed that such terrible acts of cruelty would never be tolerated again. Moreover, it has agreed that the death penalty would be given only in the case of a very grave offense, which, clearly, adultery is not.

“International donors, including those supporting the legal reform process, should send a clear message to President Hamid Karzai that inclusion of stoning in the new penal code would have an immediate adverse effect on funding for the government,” the organization says.

So far, no word back from government officials.