It is official that the Taliban is carrying out public executions and amputations will continue like it used to be during their last regime (1996-2001). On Saturday the group’s justice department executed four kidnappers and hung their bodies by cranes in Herat city. Several videos are put on social media by the Taliban supporters. The Taliban made a public announcement that four kidnappers have been killed or executed by the Taliban police.
Taliban started public executions in the cities.
This is Herat. pic.twitter.com/1fqJNTbTuC
— Hizbullah Khan (@HizbkKhan) September 25, 2021
Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, the notorious head of the justice and religious police during the previous regime of the group has warned that severe punishments like public executions, amputations are now back as these are necessary for “security”.
One of the founders of the Taliban, Turabi’s notoriety was well known during the last regime of the group where he had awarded severe sentences to “accused”. Sometimes these punishments were carried out in sports stadiums.
“Everyone criticized us for the punishments in the stadium, but we have never said anything about their laws and their punishments,” Turabi told The Associated Press. “No one will tell us what our laws should be. We will follow Islam and we will make our laws on the Quran.”
Taliban official: Strict punishment, executions will return
One-legged and one eyed “butcher” as he is known in Afghanistan, 65 year old Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, who was not only in charge of the Taliban Justice Ministry but he was also the head of the Ministry of Promotion of Virtue and Suppression of Vice. It enforced the movement's strict interpretation of Islamic law, which includes public executions for convicted murderers, stoning to death for adultery and amputations for thieves. He is believed to have played a role in the destruction of two, 1,500-year-old sandstone Buddha statues that once towered some 180 feet high in Bamyan in central Afghanistan. The Taliban, who considered them symbols of paganism, destroyed them in 2001. After the US attack in 2001, Turabi fled to Pakistan with the founder of the Taliban Mullah Omar. In 2010 he was arrested by the Pakistani Inter-States Intelligence (ISI) along with Mullah Baradar and other Taliban leaders and later released in 2018 to help in the Afghan peace process.
Now Turabi is back after two decades as the head of the Prison department.
“We are changed from the past, but cutting off of hands is very necessary for security,” he told AP, saying it had a deterrent effect but now the new cabinet was studying whether to punish in public or not. But the foundation of Afghanistan’s laws will be the Quran and Sharia.
For those convicted of highway robbery, a hand and a foot were amputated. His dreaded ministry was notorious for enforcing the Taliban’s harsh version of Sharia law, including a ban on women venturing outside their house without a male relative and prohibition on music and other forms of entertainment.
“But this time judges — including women — would adjudicate cases,” Turabi said.
Also Read: Taliban hang dead bodies in city squares of Herat
