Lashes for drinking

Opinion: November 4, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

By Hejratullah Ekhtiyar

Institute for War & Peace Reporting

KABUL, Afghanistan

Judges in Afghanistan’s southeast Nangarhar province have started sentencing anyone caught drinking alcohol to 80 lashes.

When the Taliban movement was in power, penalties derived from Islamic law were routinely imposed. Stoning or amputation was the norm for someone convicted of adultery or theft.

Once the Taliban were ousted in 2001, such harsh punishments were abandoned.

Recently, however, President Hamid Karzai signed into law a measure that allows for corporal punishment, as well as fines and imprisonment for those convicted of consuming alcohol.

In Nangarhar province, judges promptly started putting the penalty into practice.

Abdul Qayum, the chief prosecutor in the province, said his office had requested the sentence in 10 trials since the legislation came into force. He said the lashings have served as a serious deterrent and reduced the number of cases coming before the court.

“If Islamic principles are implemented for other crimes, too, the level of crime and corruption will fall significantly,” he said.

Maulavi Abdul Aziz Khairkhwah, the head of religious affairs in the provincial administration, took a similarly hard-line stand.

“I can confidently tell you that security will not be established in Afghanistan unless the Sharia system and regulations are enforced,” he said.

Crime soars

Khairkhwah worked as a judge under the Talban, and claims that crime has soared under the current government.

“Westerners want to impose their democracy — which includes obscene acts, drinking alcohol and other immoral things — on Afghanistan,” he said. “These things are contrary to Islamic law. There are also individuals in the [current administration] who grew up in the West and are loyal to it.”

Public support for the tough line on alcohol appears widespread.

“It was absolutely necessary to come up with this law,” lawyer Mohebollah Faruqi said. “Islam has already prescribed the penalties, and legislators do not dare draft laws that go against Sharia.”

Ekhtiyar is a reporter in Afghanistan who writes for The Institute for War & Peace Reporting, a nonprofit organization in London that trains journalists in areas of conflict. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune.