Murderers, thieves and Taliban militants line the gloomy corridors of Kandahar prison, a foul-smelling jail in southern Afghanistan’s main city. But not every inmate is guilty.
Muhammad and Sadiqa, a pair of star-crossed teenagers, are locked into grubby cells in separate wings of the prison. Their crime was to fall in love.
”I proposed three times but her parents would not agree. So we decided to run away,” said Muhammad, a shy, barefoot boy in a sparkling skullcap who claimed to be 18 but looked much younger.
After two years of romance the lovers eloped three months ago, paying about $5 for a taxi that took them to neighbouring Helmand province. But a week later, they were collared by a furious uncle and hauled back to Kandahar, where police flung them in prison.
Now they are divided by high walls and armed guards. Muhammad spends his days preparing the prison slops, and sitting under a wall plastered with pictures of swooning Indian film stars. The romances are his favourites, he said.
He has been allowed to see Siddiqi, who is locked in the prison’s female section, just twice. Male reporters are forbidden from entering the female prison.
The incarceration is cruel, but it may be the safest option for now. Sadiqa’s brothers, shamed by the affair, have threatened to kill both of them if they are released.
”I don’t care how long it takes to get out,” Muhammad says, rubbing his face nervously. ”I love her. I just want to marry her.”
The reconstruction of Afghanistan has yet to extend to the rule of law. The legal system, which analysts say is the cornerstone of any lasting peace, remains in tatters. There are just a handful of courthouses in the main cities, and virtually no defence lawyers. Most judges are religious leaders with no legal qualification. Even the law itself is murky — many of the original statutory texts from the 1960s and 70s have been destroyed.
In the countryside, most crimes are still decided by village elders. Perpetrators can avoid punishment for crimes as serious as murder by paying ”blood money” or giving away a daughter in marriage.
”Effectively, there is no legal system,” says Alex Thier, a fellow at the Stanford Institute for International Studies and expert on Afghan legal systems.
The recent trial of the American mercenary Jack Idema and two accomplices highlighted the chaos. Hearings were marred by courtroom shouting matches and incomprehensible translation.
No clear procedure was followed. On the final day the judge declared the Americans guilty — after reading a long verdict apparently prepared even before the trial had closed.
Afghanistan’s legal system is a hybrid of civil and sharia rulings that, in theory, favours secular law. Since 2001 the top judicial ranks have been dominated by Islamic fundamentalists, who are pushing for universal application of sharia.
Concern centres on the powerful Chief Justice, Fazl Hadi Shinwari. The cleric has no legal training, although he once ran a Pakistani madrassa, and has links with a hardline, Saudi-backed militia. Since his appointment in 2001 Shinwari has packed the benches with mullahs.
‘Renegade judiciary’
Last January he led a supreme court declaration that a television performance by the pop singer Salma was unIslamic and therefore illegal. The video, which was filmed two decades earlier, showed a modestly dressed woman singing about rural life.
Under a new Constitution adopted 10 days earlier, the supreme court has the right to reject laws it feels are ”unIslamic”.
Two months ago Shinwari tried to bar a presidential election candidate, Latif Pedram, for questioning the treatment of women under Islamic practices such as polygamy. ”I will never accept and am not obliged to learn any law or regulation opposing Islamic law,” he has said.
The ”renegade judiciary” represents ”one of the greatest threats to stability and democracy in Afghanistan”, according to Thier, who recently published a study on rebuilding the judicial system.
President Hamid Karzai, who won the October 9 election, is afraid to tackle the mullahs, he says, because he cannot afford to be seen as ”less Islamic than thou”.
Karzai is also troubled by the prospect of bringing the country’s many war criminals — most of whom still hold powerful positions — to justice.
A strong legal system is also key to tackling the drug lords, who are preparing for a bumper opium harvest expected to supply 75% of the world’s heroin.
Sitting in his Kandahar cell, Muhammad knows the fragility of Afghan law. Eight years ago his cousins killed his father in a land dispute. Now Siddiqi refuses to leave the prison because she fears being beaten by her own relatives, or worse.
For now there are no laws to protect Kandahar’s answer to Romeo and Juliet.
”This is not a crime, they have just broken a custom,” says the prison governor with a shrug. ”The problem must be solved in a Koranic way.” – Guardian Unlimited Â