EU calls on Afghanistan to abolish death penalty after first public execution of Taliban since 2021
The European Union’s diplomatic office has called on Afghanistan to abolish the death penalty in the country after the Taliban announced Wednesday the first execution carried out in public since the fundamentalists returned to power in August 2021.
“The European Union calls on the Taliban to halt any future executions and instead pursue a policy towards the abolition of capital punishment,” reads a statement from the European External Action Service.
It has thus joined in condemning “in the strongest terms” the public execution of a man in the province of Farah, in the same line as the United Nations.
The EU has also reaffirmed its “firm opposition” to the death penalty “at all times and in all circumstances”. “It is a cruel and inhuman punishment, which does not serve as a deterrent to crime and represents an unacceptable denial of human dignity and integrity,” the letter continues.
In this sense, from Brussels have stressed that the institutions continue to work for the universal abolition of the death penalty.
“Human rights issues are at the heart of the EU’s internal and external relations, directly affecting all our policies,” the body concludes.
The spokesman for the UN Human Rights office, Jeremy Laurence, condemned the execution in Afghanistan of a man convicted of murder.
“Public executions constitute a form of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment. Such executions are arbitrary in nature and contrary to the right to life protected by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which Afghanistan is a State party,” he specified in a statement in which he described this event as “deeply disturbing”.
