The latest: Public floggings have become the norm of the day under the Taliban regime now, with dozens of people, including women, being meted out brutal sentences by the group’s court. On Thursday, Taliban publicly flogged 12 people, including a woman, on various charges in Firozkoh city of Ghor province.
Go deeper:
- As per the spokesperson of the Taliban in Ghor, the charges against the accused ranged from “theft, moral corruption, drinking and running away from home”.
- Sources said that the lowest limit on the number of lashes was 25 and the highest was 39 for the accused.
- In recent months, the Taliban have whipped a large number of citizens in different provinces.
Back story: On Wednesday, Taliban publicly flogged 27 Afghans in Helmand and Zabul provinces on various charges. Local Taliban officials have said that they flogged 20 men in the Lashkargah city stadium and seven others, including two women, in the Sheikh Mati High School in Qalat city. According to Riaz, these citizens have been punished for theft and extramarital affairs.
- In Qalat, the capital city of Zabul province, the Taliban have flogged seven people, including two women, at the Sheikh Mati High School on charges of theft and extramarital affairs. After flogging the two women, the Taliban in Zabul Province sentenced them to three and one-year sentences in prison.
- The floggings were conducted in full public view at the football stadiums of Helmand and Zabul provinces, and the spectators were mostly Taliban members. Like before, the Taliban had warned residents from taking videos or photos of the scene and mobile phones were collected before entering the stadium.
Zoom out: The public flogging comes a week after the Taliban carried out their first public execution since returning to power in August 2021. The execution was carried out in front of hundreds of people, including top Taliban officials.
- In the second half of November, the Taliban organized a public flogging of 12 people accused of theft and adultery at a sports stadium in Logar province. It was the first such flogging since the Taliban returned to power. On December 8, 27 people, men and women, were punished in the same way in the central Parwan province Afghanistan.
- Last month, Taliban’s supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada instructed judges to fully enforce Sharia law, including public executions, stoning and floggings, and the amputation of limbs.
- During the previous Taliban rule in the 1990s, public floggings and executions were common in Afghanistan.
- The implementation of corporal punishment and punishments such as execution in public has been widely condemned internationally. However, the Taliban has intensified the execution of punishment based on this group’s extreme interpretation of Islamic Sharia, ignoring international condemnations.
