Afghanistan’s sharia Islamic law committee is currently drafting a new punishment into law; adulterers will now be subject to being stoned to death in a public execution if they are caught. The same rule was in effect during the six years the Taliban was in power, and adulterers were either stoned or shot to death.

According to Reuters, a “senior official” confirmed the upcoming law on Monday. Oddly enough, two adulterers near Kabul were captured over the weekend after escaping persecution by car. The two lovers then smashed the vehicle, at which point they were apprehended. The majority of townspeople in the province where the two were caught pushed for an immediate execution by stoning. The couple were ordered to be shot the next day, after the girl’s father authorized the shooting of “both man and woman.”

In the new law, if one or both of the adulterers are married – and unanimously convicted – both people will be ordered to be killed by stoning. If the two are unmarried, their sentence is “whipping [by] 100 lashings.”

Human rights and corruption agreements between Afghanistan and Norway caused the latter country to stop aid they had been supplying.

Image courtesy Afghanistan Matters via Wikimedia Commons.