US condemns Taliban’s reported plan to reinstate executions, amputations

WASHINGTON (Reuters): US State Department spokesperson Ned Price said on Friday that Washington condemns in the strongest terms reported comments by a Taliban official who said the group would restore the use of amputations and executions as punishment in Afghanistan.

Responding to Taliban leader Mullah Nooruddin Turabi’s comments to The Associated Press, Price said the acts would constitute gross abuses of human rights.

Turabi, now in charge of prisons, told AP News amputations were “necessary for security”.

He said these punishments may not be meted out in public, as they were under previous Taliban rule in the 1990s.

In an interview with the publication, Turabi dismissed outrage over the Taliban’s executions in the past, which sometimes took place in front of crowds at a stadium, and he warned the world against interfering with Afghanistan’s new rulers.

“Everyone criticised us for the punishments in the stadium, but we have never said anything about their laws and their punishments,” Turabi was quoted as saying, speaking in Kabul. “No one will tell us what our laws should be. We will follow Islam and we will make our laws on the Quran.”

Since taking power in Afghanistan on 15 August the Taliban have been promising a milder form of rule than in their previous tenure. But there have already been several reports of human rights abuses carried out across the country.