In November, the Taliban's supreme leader told judges that Shariah and its associated punishments should be fully enforced. One of those punishments, public executions, was imposed on Wednesday in Afghanistan, in what the BBC reports is believed to be the Taliban's first public execution since it regained power last year. Top Taliban government ministers attended the public killing, in which a man named Tajmir was put to death at a sports stadium in south-western Farah province after he confessed to a murder committed five years ago. The Guardian reports Tajmir stabbed a man to death in 2017; that man's father executed Tajmir by shooting him three times, per Taliban rep Zabihullah Mujahid.
Prior to the killing, a public notice was posted that announced the execution, requesting "all citizens to join us in the sport field." When they ruled from 1996 through 2001, the Taliban were known for holding public executions at the national stadium in Kabul; the execution "underscored the intentions by Afghanistan's new rulers to continue hard-line policies implemented since they took over ... and to stick to their interpretation of Islamic law, or Shariah," writes the AP. Mujahid said the decision to move forward with the execution was "made very carefully" and involved the signoff of three of the country's highest courts and Taliban supreme leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada. (More Taliban stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
