The Afghan government and human rights campaigners have heavily condemned the public execution of a young woman accused of adultery following the release of amateur footage depicting the incident. Click through for further details and the video, which does not show the actual killing but may upset sensitive viewers.

The victim, later identified as 22-year-old Najiba, was accused of adultery with a Taliban official.

“Within one hour they decided that she was guilty and sentenced her to death. They shot her in front of villagers in her village, Qol,” said Parwan provincial spokeswoman, Roshna Khalid.

The video, which a villager handed over to provincial officials soon after the shooting, shows Najiba wrapped in a grey shawl, sitting next to a ditch, surrounded by a large crowd of men. A bearded man reads a verse from the Koran about adultery, including the line “[w]e cannot forgive her, God tells us to finish her”. Shortly after, another man approaches her from behind and says “‘Allahu akhbar’ (God is great)” and shoots her in the back of the head with an AK-47. He then shoots her corpse a further six times while the surrounding crowd cheers “Long live Islam”, “Long live mujahideen (holy warriors)”, before shooting her an additional four times.

The video sparked immediate and widespread outrage from the government, officials and human rights campaigners amongst others.

The Afghan government said it “strongly condemns this un-Islamic and inhuman action by those professional killers and has ordered the Parwan police to find the culprits and bring them to justice”.

The Afghan Human Rights Commission had similar sentiments, saying:

We condemn any killings done without proper trial. It is un-Islamic and against any human rights values.

Prominent Afghan human rights activist, Fawzia Koofi, spoke out against the shooting urging that “we will have to do seriously something about this … as women, but also as human beings.”

Almost 10 years ago, while the Taliban was still in power, such killings were much more common until the arrival of the US-led invasion in 2001.

Khalid has stated that the video was recorded a month ago and that “the security forces are preparing a big operation to find the culprits”.

[Source: Sky News, YouTube]