‘No One Will Tell Us What Our Laws Should Be’: Taliban Official Says They Will Bring Back Extreme Punishment

A Taliban official said that the militant group will be returning harsh punishment to Afghanistan.

Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, who previously served as the Taliban’s justice minister and is now serving to enforce its extreme interpretation of Islam, told the Associated Press on Thursday that the country will be ruled under strict Islamic law and return to executions and cutting off hands.

Turabi is sanctioned by the United Nations and the United Kingdom.

“Everyone criticized us for the punishments in the stadium, but we have never said anything about their laws and their punishments,” Turabi told the AP, referring to the Taliban’s past public executions. “No one will tell us what our laws should be. We will follow Islam and we will make our laws on the Quran.”

“Cutting off of hands is very necessary for security,” Turabi said, adding that the government is still trying to decide whether to perform such punishments publicly or privately.

The punishments have been all too common for the Taliban’s targets, such as those who worked with the U.S. military. Human rights groups have widely condemned the tactics.

Saber Nasseri, who served as an interpreter for U.S. forces, was one of the victim’s of the inhumane punishments. He displayed his hands, each missing fingers, on Fox News’ “Hannity” last month to show how the Taliban punished him for working with the U.S. military.

“The Taliban, they cut my fingers off, they cut my body, all of that. I got a lot of shrapnel. I worked for Navy SEALs, U.S. Marines in Afghanistan, but, right now, the Taliban, they are hunting my family,” Nasseri said.

After forming its government in Afghanistan shortly after the U.S. withdrawal, the Taliban’s Supreme Leader vowed to “work hard towards upholding Islamic rules and sharia law.”