Islamic State video 'shows man stone his daughter to death'

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-29715737

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The Islamic State (IS) group has released an undated video that appears to show an elderly Syrian man stone his daughter to death for alleged adultery.

A UK-based Syria monitoring group said it took place in central Hama province but could not confirm the date.

The video's authenticity could not be independently verified by the BBC.

IS is known for employing brutal tactics in areas under its control in Syria and Iraq, including mass killings of religious and ethnic minorities.

The group has increasingly posted video clips online of public executions carried out on people living under its strict implementation of Islamic law, or Sharia, including the beheadings of captured soldiers and foreign journalists.

The UK-based activist group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), says the woman's execution is the third of its kind in territories under IS control in Syria.

Final words

In the YouTube video, which was posted by IS on Tuesday, a bearded man in military fatigues is seen explaining to the woman that she is being punished for committing adultery.

He passes down her sentence in the presence of an elderly man, believed to be her father.

She asks for his forgiveness, but despite pressure from IS fighters around, he refuses her request.

"I say to every woman: preserve your honour... and I appeal to every father to pay attention to the surroundings your daughter lives in," the woman says when prompted for some final words before the stoning commences.

The elderly man then ties a rope around her arms and waist, and leads her to a shallow pit in the ground, where she is seen being pelted with stones from a group of men gathered around, including her father.

SOHR said a man accused of adultery was executed in a separate incident in Idlib province in an area controlled by local al-Qaeda affiliate the al-Nusra Front.

The monitoring group said it was the first documented case of a man being stoned to death for adultery since the Syria conflict began in 2011.

Two incidents of stoning to death were also reported in July involving two women accused of committing adultery, according to the observatory.

Images from one of the alleged stoning incidents in Syria's Raqqa province featured in the August issue of IS's propaganda magazine Dabiq, under the caption: "Stoning is carried out on a woman for committing adultery."

The rapid advance of IS in both Syria and Iraq, where it controls large chunks of territory, has prompted the West and its Arab allies to launch air strikes against the jihadist group.

On Monday, UN human rights chief Ivan Simonovic said Islamic State's treatment of minorities in Syria and Iraq may amount to war crimes.

Its atrocities against the Yazidi people in northern Iraq in particular amounted to attempted genocide, he added.