The United Nations has called on Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers to halt all state executions, expressing its concern in a report detailing public executions, stoning, flogging, and other types of forms of corporal punishments carried out by the hardline Islamic group since it retook control over the country almost two years ago.
According to report from the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), in the last six months alone, 58 women, 274 men, and two underage boys have been publicly lashed for various offenses such as adultery, fleeing from home, theft, homosexuality, drinking alcohol, forgery, and drug trafficking. Official punishment for those convicted ranged from 30 to 100 lashes.
The report records two public executions since the Taliban’s takeover, one of them ordered by a judge in western Afghanistan and attended by Taliban ministers, according to UNAMA.
The executed man was convicted of murdering another man in 2017, and the victim’s family carried out the punishment.
The Taliban regime has been widely condemned, including by the governments of other majority-Muslim nations and organizations, for its strict interpretation of Islam, including its bans on girls over the age of 12 attending school or university and on women working in the vast majority of professions.
The Taliban-run Supreme Court of Afghanistan said last week that courts throughout the nation have handed down a total of 175 death sentences since the summer of 2021, including 37 persons sentenced to death by stoning.
According to the Supreme Court’s deputy, Abdul Malik Haqqani, some of the sanctions had already been carried out, while others were still pending. The court did not go into detail about the alleged crimes of those sentenced.
