Still Stoning

With the wing nuts running around like screaming banchees over this handful of extremist judges, I imagine that if they get their way, America's right will be promoting this mentality very soon.

The Afghan government has the responsibility of protecting women from violence, committed not only by the state but also by private individuals and groups,'' Amnesty said in a statement issued after sifting reports of Amina's stoning to death.

Amnesty, citing eyewitnesses, said Amina's husband and local officials dragged her out of her parents' house before stoning her to death in public. The man accused of committing adultery with her reportedly was whipped one hundred times and freed.

Police officials and Afghan human rights commission workers, however, have told news agencies that local accounts also suggest the possibility that Amina's husband and his family may have killed her by some other means, not by stoning, and that they could have trumped up the adultery accusations against her to deflect her request for a separation.

Journalists also have reported that Amina's husband recently returned from Iran after five years away and that she asked him for a separation on the grounds that her husband could not support her. The husband, however, accused Amina of having a relationship with another man. It was not clear whether the couple had any children.

During the Taliban's rule, adultery provided a frequent basis or pretext for women to be stoned to death. At least one other woman reportedly was stoned to death in the same area as Amina in the three-plus years since the Taliban's removal. Amina's apparently was the first sanctioned execution of a woman for adultery, Amnesty said.