VOA NEWS, October 9, 2024

Taliban publicly flog 9 Afghan men, women despite UN outcry

Taliban leaders defend their criminal justice system, arguing that it is in line with their interpretation of the Islamic law of Sharia

Taliban security personnel keep watch ahead of the court flogging of women and men at a football stadium in Charikar city of Parwan province, Dec. 8, 2022.

Ayaz Gul

Hardline Taliban authorities in Afghanistan reported Wednesday that nine people, including at least two women, were publicly flogged after being convicted of various crimes, such as adultery.

Five of the punishments took place at a sports stadium in Kandahar, capital of the eponymous southern province. Local Taliban officials, judicial officers, and ordinary Afghans were among the onlookers.

The Taliban’s Supreme Court announced the details, saying the five individuals were found guilty of adultery, sodomy, and robbery, with each of them receiving 39 lashes and prison sentences ranging from two to seven years. It did not say whether females were among the convicts. The court separately announced that two men and two women were publicly flogged Wednesday for adultery in the northern Afghan provinces of Takhar and Samangan.

Hundreds of men and women have been lashed in sports stadiums across Afghanistan since the Taliban regained power in 2021.

In June this year, the Islamist leaders carried out a mass lashing of 63 convicts, including 14 women, in a packed northern sports stadium for committing “immoral crimes," such as adultery and homosexuality. The Taliban have also executed at least five Afghan murder convicts in crowded sports stadiums, citing the Islamic concept of retributive justice known as qisas.

Global outcry

The executions and corporeal punishments have drawn an outcry and calls from the United Nations to immediately end them for being in breach of human rights and international law.

Taliban leaders defend their criminal justice system, arguing that it is in line with their interpretation of the Islamic law of Sharia. They also rejected criticism of their curbs on Afghan women’s access to education, employment, and public life at large.

The United States and the world at large have refused to recognize Taliban authorities as the official government of Afghanistan, citing their treatment of women, among other human rights concerns.

“We continue to make clear that any significant steps towards normalization of relations is contingent upon a profound shift in the Taliban’s human rights conduct,” said Matthew Miller, the U.S. State Department spokesperson, speaking to reporters Tuesday. “And there has been remarkable unity among the international community on that question.”

Girls ages 12 and older are not allowed to attend secondary school, making Afghanistan the only country in the world with this restriction, while female students have been barred from universities. Most Afghan women are prohibited from working in both public and private sectors, including the U.N.

The Taliban last month enacted so-called “vice and virtue” laws that, according to critics, have dealt another blow to women’s rights in Afghanistan. The contentious decree deems the sound of a woman’s voice in public a moral violation and requires them to cover their entire bodies and faces when outdoors. It also forbids women from looking at men to whom they are not related and vice versa.

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