The involvement of doctors has prompted global outcry from rights groups and medical organisations. Sharmila Devi reports.

Medical and human rights groups have expressed “horror” over Iran's use of a guillotine machine in the medical clinic of a Tehran prison to amputate the fingers of two men convicted of theft. At least eight more men are awaiting a similar sentence. Under Iran's Islamic penal code, four fingers on the right hand are completely cut off for certain types of theft.

The use of amputation as punishment, although rare, remains in the legal framework of countries including Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Brunei, Indonesia, Nigeria, Qatar, and Sudan. Under Islamic law, hudud punishment includes amputation of hands and feet for theft and robbery, flogging for drinking alcohol, stoning for adultery, and death for murder. The Taliban, which seized power in Afghanistan a year ago, has said it will resume judicial amputations, which it enforced when it ruled the country between 1996 and 2001.

Overall, judicial amputations appear to be on the decline globally. Rights groups say that few cases have been recorded over the past decade or so, although they do not track the practice in the same way that they do for capital punishment, for example.