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Some of the individuals who were executed for drug related charges had received their sentences in the past and the death penalty should not have been applied to them. In some cases, the individuals only had to pay a monetary penalty. However, their sudden death sentence was issued by the judiciary authorities. 

Taliban insurgents flogged and publicly executed a pregnant Afghan widow for alleged adultery Saturday, according to reports. The woman, Sanum Gul (also reported as Bibi Sanubar by DAWN), was killed in Badghis province in western Afghanistan Saturday morning, the provincial governor's spokesman said. After being held in captivity for three days and flogged 200 times, Gul -- whose age was given as both 35 and 47 in various reports -- was shot in the head three times, said Hashim Habibi, the district governor of Qades, also located in the province. Though Habibi said Taliban commander Mohammaad Yousuf carried out the execution, a Taliban spokesman has since denied any involvement.

"We have not done anything like that in Badghis or any other province," the spokesman said, calling the report "propaganda" by foreigners and the Western-backed Afghan government. Officials say Gul had been widowed for four years. She was accused of adultery for her relationship with an unnamed man, despite claims that the man had planned to marry her. Various groups have since condemned the killing.

The Iranian woman whose sentence to death by stoning sparked an international outcry is feared to be facing imminent execution, after she was put on a state-run TV programme last night where she confessed to adultery and involvement in a murder. Speaking shakily in her native Azeri language, which could be heard through a voiceover, Sakineh Mohammadi Ashtiani told an interviewer that she was an accomplice to the murder of her husband and that she had an extramarital relationship with her husband's cousin. Her lawyer told the Guardian last night that his client, a 43-year-old mother of two, was tortured for two days before the interview was recorded in Tabriz prison, where she has been held for the past four years.

On November 2, 2010, The Protection Project will host the Fifth Annual Symposium on “The US Trafficking Victims Protection Act and the UN Trafficking Protocol: Ten years Later” at The Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies, in Washington, D.C., USA. The Protection Project is now calling for scholarly papers describing and analyzing the lessons learned in the legal, political, cultural, social, or economic fields since the enactment of the US Trafficking Victims Protection Act and the UN Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, especially Women and Children in the year 2000. Scholars and professionals are encouraged to apply. The authors of the selected papers will be invited to present the findings of their study at The Protection Project Fifth Annual Symposium. Following the Symposium, selected papers will be published in The Protection Project Journal of Human Rights and Civil Society, 4th ed.