From: Dr Sebby (drsebby@hotmail.com)
Date: Mon Feb 11 2002 - 03:11:31 MST
...by the way, if anyone wants it i have a very shocking, disgusting and
horrifying video clip of some wonderful islamic justice - a guy fully
sentient and awake getting his hands and one foot cut off using a knife then
tossed in the back of a truck to begin his new 'hand-less, footless' life
anew...without that horrible 'crime' of theft in his capacity. it is a
TRULY terrifying and psychologically traumatic thing to see...something you
cant 'un-see' or forget. not for the faint of heart...even i cant bear to
look at it anymore - it stains my image of what i think of when the word
'human being' is mentioned. it is a very very horrific thing to know that
such organized monstrosity can exist. you might want it though, for
educational purposes when dealing with a proponent of religious law and the
like. drop me a line and i'll upload it to you.
drsebby.
----Original Message Follows----
From: "L' Ermit" <lhermit@hotmail.com>
Reply-To: virus@lucifer.com
To: virus@lucifer.com
Subject: virus: Plus ça change, plus ça meme
Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2002 02:38:33 -0600
[url]http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2002/01/30/international1359EST0632.DTL[/url]
In new Afghanistan, scales of justice still tip toward strict Islamic law
LAURA KING, AP Special Correspondent Wednesday, January 30, 2002
Breaking News Sections
(01-30) 22:49 PST KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) --
Afghanistan's new chief justice wears a pure-white turban, and hanging on
the wall above his desk are two symbols of Islamic justice: a sword and a
leather lash for flogging.
The Taliban are gone, but sharia, or the code of Islamic law, is here to
stay, says Fazel Hadi Shinwari, appointed by the interim government one
month ago as chief of Afghanistan's Supreme Court.
That means that in the new Afghanistan, adulterers can still face death by
stoning, homosexuals can be punished by being hurled from a high place or
having a wall toppled over onto them, and thieves can be sentenced to having
a hand lopped off, the 70-year-old justice said Wednesday in an interview
with The Associated Press.
But such punishments, Shinwarai said, would only be meted out following a
meticulous legal process, during which the accused has many chances to
contest the charges and appeal for clemency, and measures such as paying
restitution can often stave off the harshest sentences.
"We will not be like the Taliban," he said. "They used to hold one quick
hearing, with no lawyers or witnesses, take the person away to the stadium
and carry out the sentence in front of everyone -- that was wrong. They
blackened the name of Islam."
Few in Kabul can forget the chilling Taliban practice of public executions
and amputations, many of which were carried out in the city's dilapidated
sports stadium before large crowds. If there were not enough onlookers,
Taliban police would sometimes take to the nearby streets and round up more.
On several occasions, amputated hands and feet were strung from lampposts
around Kabul as a warning.
To some who suffered summary Taliban justice, it is time for a more merciful
era.
"A sheep being brought to the slaughter had more dignity than I did," said
33-year-old Mirwais, whose hand and foot were amputated by the Taliban at
the stadium in 1997 after he was convicted of highway robbery.
He said he had no lawyer and was uncertain of the charges against him until
he was told he had been found guilty. The next day, he said, he was brought
to the stadium and made to kneel on the dead grass.
Mirwais, who like many Afghans uses one name, remembers the sight of the
doctor's masked face and the prick of a needle for the anesthetic before he
awoke in the hospital with searing pain in the stumps of his limbs.
"My life is over now -- I have nothing left," said Mirwais, who has no job,
and lives in a freezing mud-brick hovel. "No one should have this kind of
punishment."
Shinwari said that unlike in Taliban times, doctors would not be made to
carry out amputations; prison doctors who were willing would do the job.
Punishments would no longer take place in public, he said, but behind prison
walls.
"It is barbaric for the carrying out of a judicial sentence to be a public
entertainment," Shinwari said sternly.
He said his court would stand ready, if necessary, to try Osama bin Laden or
Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, if they were captured and it was
decided to bring them to justice in Afghanistan.
Asked how they would be treated, he said they would be tried with all due
process, and that depending on the charges they could face life in prison or
the death penalty.
Shinwari is a native of eastern Afghanistan's Nangarhar Province, a member
of a prominent Pashtun tribe. The Taliban, whose top leadership was almost
all Pashtun, used strict tribal codes of behavior as the basis for some of
their many rules and regulations.
But the Taliban brand of justice became increasingly bizarre, outlawing
activities like pigeon-keeping and kite-flying, mandating the length of
men's beards and forbidding women to wear white stockings because that was
the color of the Taliban flag. Edicts were enforced by much-feared religious
police. Shinwari said no one wanted to see a return to such times, but that
Afghanistan's social values had to be taken into account in administering
the country's judicial system.
"Afghanistan is still an Islamic state," he said. "The Taliban distorted
sharia, but it has its place in our society."
Shinwari has lived in exile for nearly 40 years, most of that time spent in
Pakistan, where he taught Islamic law at a madrassa, or religious seminary.
He said he traveled to Kabul to witness the swearing-in of interim leader
Hamid Karzai, a fellow Pashtun, and was surprised to find himself appointed
chief justice.
The high court has yet to sit in session, because it hears appeals from
lower courts that have only begun trying cases within the last several
weeks. So it will probably take a month or two to build up a caseload for
the high court, Shinwari said.
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DrSebby.
"Courage...and shuffle the cards".
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