Afghanistan’s Justice Ministry is in the process of drafting a new penal code that includes proposals for public stoning as a punishment for committing adultery, according to Human Rights Watch.

Both the human rights organization and the Guardian newspaper have seen drafts of the new code that include several references to stoning. “Men and women who commit adultery shall be published based on the circumstances to one of the following punishments: lashing, stoning [to death],” the Guardian quotes the draft penal code as saying.

The current penal system in Afghanistan, which came into force in 1976, makes no mention of stoning as a punishment for crimes committed. Despite this, public stoning has been a means of administering punishments and executions, most notoriously at the height of the Taliban’s time in power from the mid-1990s to 2001.

There continues to be isolated reports of execution by stoning since the downfall of the Taliban government, according to Human Rights Watch. It condemned the practice as a violation of international human rights standards that the Afghanistan government has pledged to uphold.

[The Guardian]