Taliban free to engage in public stonings in Afghanistan, crowds gather to watch blood drenched woman's burqa, police see, say nothing

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1/26/11, "Graphic Video of Fatal Stoning Shows Taliban's Strength," ABC News, Nick Schifrin

"About 200 people listen to a Taliban mullah describe why a man and woman deserve to be killed. A few dozen spectators – people from the local community --

• start throwing rocks at the woman, who had already been placed in a 4-foot-deep hole. They throw with relish and yell, "Allah akbar."

At one point a large rock strikes her head and she falls down, her burqa red with blood. After the rock throwing ends, a few people debate whether she should be shot. Eventually one of the spectators shoots her with an AK-47. She falls into the hole, out of sight. There is a short period of absolute silence, and then the

• spectators turn to each other and start talking.

Then the man is brought into the crowd and blindfolded with his own tunic. The same scene proceeds, but with larger rocks and more abandon. He cries as he is killed.

That's a dispassionate description of video of the first documented stoning in Afghanistan since the Taliban were in power, which took place in October.* The video is shocking and nauseating, and most people who watch an unedited version of the footage need to look away.

The cell phone video, first obtained by the BBC and then independently obtained by ABC News, was filmed by one of the spectators at the stoning, which occurred in a conservative district near the Afghan-Tajik border. It was also posted online, viewed by about 6,000 people.

The brutality of the event is one of the most outrageous examples of the Taliban imposing their own version of justice in Afghanistan nearly nine years after the war began. It shows how their reach in historically peaceful northern Afghanistan recently expanded to the point where they could hold a public execution

• at 10:30 a.m. without any fear of retribution....

"When a married woman commits adultery, she will be struck by stones -- this is called sangsar in Arabic," the Taliban mullah declares before the stoning begins. "The women you see here today committed adultery with this man. She has admitted this herself not once, but many times… Islamic law will be enforced here in Kunduz,

• by the grace of God. They will both be punished, these two people."...

Cousins of the victims were forced to attend the stoning, and nobody in the local police or government attempted to prosecute the stone throwers."...
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* There may not be video of others, but it's not the first reported case of public stoning, per 8/16/10 BBC report. They don't necessarily call up American news outlets to report such things. They do as they please. It is a large, lawless country, much of the population is on opium, and public stoning "still exists on the law books in Afghanistan, Iran, sections of Nigeria,

• Pakistan, Sudan, and the United Arab Emirates."...

via MichaelSavage.com