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| Afghanistan |
| Afghanistan Frees Prisoners From Overcrowded Jails |
| 2002-06-01 |
| Twenty-eight scruffy prisoners filed out of Kabul's main detention center on Saturday as Afghanistan's interim authorities implemented an amnesty they hope will ease overcrowding in the country's squalid jails. 28 of them? Well, that frees up lots of room... The released prisoners included a woman who had been arrested for adultery, still a crime under Islamic law despite the overthrow of the country's hard-line Taliban rulers. She was freed after convincing a prison review commission the man with whom she was involved was her fiance. They don't have shotguns in Afghanistan? A shotgun and a preacher would have made things easier on her and the Afghans wouldn't look goofier than they are. Prisoners over 60, children under 18 and minor felons serving terms of less than a year are being released as Afghanistan reverts to a 1976 penal code that blends Islamic law with Western concepts of justice, Chief Justice Mawlavi Fazil Hadie Shenwary said. That's certainly an improvement over cutting people's heads off... The fundamentalist Taliban, ousted from power in December following a U.S. air offensive, imposed only a strict interpretation of Islamic Sharia law. Criminals were as often executed, stoned or buried under a bulldozed wall as they were jailed. Jug must have looked pretty nice to them, actually. |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |
