Afghan rape gang gets death sentence

Kabul – An Afghan judge yesterday sentenced seven men to death for the gang-rape of four women in a case that sparked nationwide outrage and highlighted the violence women face despite reforms since the Taliban era. The seven men, who stood in the dock dressed in brown traditional clothing, were found guilty of kidnapping and attacking the female members of a group that was driving home to Kabul from a wedding.

President Hamid Karzai yesterday had called for the men to be hanged. The death sentences were technically handed down for the crime of armed robbery rather than rape.

In a televised trial that lasted only a few hours, the court heard that the men, who had obtained police uniforms and were armed with guns, stopped a convoy of cars in the early hours of August 23.

They dragged the four women out of the vehicles, robbed them, beat them up and then raped them. One of the women was reported to be pregnant. “We went to Paghman with our families. On the way back, they took us,” one victim, dressed in a burqa, told the packed courtroom as noisy protesters outside demanded the death penalty.

“One of them put his gun to my head, the other one took all our jewellery, and the rest started what you already know,” she said.
Applause erupted inside the court after Kabul police chief Zahir Zahir called for the men to be hanged. “We want them to be hanged in public so that it will be a lesson for others,” he said.

“We arrested them with police uniforms. They confessed to their crime within two hours of their arrest.”
The judge said the seven had the right to appeal against their sentences.

Under Afghan law, the president must also sign a death warrant for an execution to go ahead.
Women’s rights have been central to the multi-billion-dollar international development effort in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001.
Under the Taliban’s harsh version of Sunni Islamic law, women were forced to wear the all-enveloping burqa, banned from jobs, and forbidden even to leave the house without a male chaperone.

Rape and violence against women and girls was rife, according to Amnesty International, which says that Afghan women are still routinely discriminated against, abused and persecuted.

The Taliban, who launched a resilient insurgency after being ousted, threaten a comeback as US-led Nato combat troops withdraw from the country later this year.- AFP.