KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) Human Rights Watch called Monday on the Afghan government to reject a proposal to reintroduce public stoning as a punishment for adultery, but the Justice Ministry denied that such a law had been submitted.
The human rights organization said that a working group led by the Justice Ministry that is assisting in drafting Afghanistan's new penal code had proposed provisions on 'moral crimes' involving sex outside of marriage that call for stoning.
"International donors, including those supporting the legal reform process, should send a clear message to President Hamid Karzai that inclusion of stoning in the new penal code would have an immediate adverse effect on funding for the government," the group said.
But Mohammad Ashraf Azimi, the head of the Justice Ministry's punishment laws department, said such a proposal had not yet been submitted for review.
"As a member of the department for the punishment laws, I haven't seen this part of the law they are mentioning," he said. "I don't know where they found it and why they are emphasizing it. We are the people working on it and we haven't seen it."