“Corporal punishment is a violation of the Conference towards Torture and should stop,” mentioned Fiona Frazer, the company’s human rights chief. She additionally referred to as for a direct moratorium on executions.
The Taliban international ministry mentioned in response that Afghanistan’s legal guidelines are decided in accordance with Islamic guidelines and pointers, and that an amazing majority of Afghans comply with these guidelines.
“Within the occasion of a battle between worldwide human rights legislation and Islamic legislation, the federal government is obliged to comply with the Islamic legislation,” the ministry mentioned in an announcement.
The Taliban started finishing up such punishments shortly after coming to energy nearly two years in the past, regardless of preliminary guarantees of a extra reasonable rule than throughout their earlier stint in energy within the 1990s.
On the identical time, they’ve progressively tightened restrictions on girls, barring them from public areas, comparable to parks and gymnasiums, in step with their interpretation of Islamic legislation. The restrictions have triggered a world uproar, growing the nation’s isolation at a time when its economic system has collapsed — and worsening a humanitarian disaster.
Monday’s report on corporal punishment paperwork Taliban practices each earlier than and after their return to energy in August 2021, after they seized the capital of Kabul as U.S. and NATO forces withdrew after twenty years of battle.
The primary public flogging following the Taliban takeover was reported in October 2021 within the northern Kapisa province, the report mentioned. In that case, a girl and man convicted of adultery have been publicly lashed 100 instances every within the presence of spiritual students and native Taliban authorities, it mentioned.
In December 2022, Taliban authorities executed an Afghan convicted of homicide, the primary public execution since they took energy the report mentioned.
The execution, carried out with an assault rifle by the sufferer’s father, came about within the western Farah province earlier than lots of of spectators and prime Taliban officers.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the highest authorities spokesman, mentioned the choice to hold out the punishment was “made very fastidiously,” following approval by three of the nation’s highest courts and the Taliban supreme chief, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada.
There was a major improve within the quantity and regularity of judicial corporal punishment since November when Mujahid repeated feedback by the supreme chief about judges and their use of Islamic legislation in a tweet, the report mentioned.
Since that tweet, UNAMA documented at the least 43 situations of public lashings involving 274 males, 58 girls and two boys. A majority of punishments have been associated to convictions of adultery and “operating away from house,” the report mentioned. Different purported offenses included theft, homosexuality, consuming alcohol, fraud and drug trafficking.
In a video message, Abdul Malik Haqqani, the Taliban’s appointed deputy chief justice, mentioned final week that the Taliban’s Supreme Court docket has issued 175 so-called retribution verdicts since taking energy, together with 79 floggings and 37 stonings.
Such verdicts set up the appropriate of a purported sufferer, or relative of a sufferer of against the law to punish or forgive the perpetrator. Haqqani mentioned the Taliban management is dedicated to finishing up such sentences.
After their preliminary overthrow within the U.S. invasion of 2001, the Taliban continued to hold out corporal punishment and executions in areas below their management whereas waging an insurgency towards the U.S.-backed former Afghan authorities, the report mentioned.
UNAMA documented at the least 182 situations when the Taliban carried out their very own sentences in the course of the top of their insurgency between 2010 and August 2021, leading to 213 deaths and 64 accidents.
Many Muslim-majority international locations draw on Islamic legislation, however the Taliban interpretation is an outlier.
U.N. Secretary-Basic Antonio Guterres has referred to as a Taliban ban on girls working an unacceptable violation of Afghan human rights.
On April 5, Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers knowledgeable the United Nations that Afghan girls employed with the U.N. mission might not report for work. Help companies have warned that the ban on girls working will impression their potential to ship pressing humanitarian assist in Afghanistan.
The Taliban beforehand banned women from going to high school past the sixth grade and ladies from most public life and work. In December, they banned Afghan girls from working at native and non-governmental teams — a measure that on the time didn’t lengthen to U.N. places of work.
Beneath the primary Taliban regime from 1996 to 2001, public corporal punishment and executions have been carried out by officers towards people convicted of crimes, usually in giant venues comparable to sports activities stadiums and at city intersections.