Taliban pledge to continue executions, public floggings as UN raises alarm

In the last six months, the Taliban have carried out hundreds of flogging incidents, stonings and public executions in Afghanistan, which has been slammed by the United Nations (UN) in its latest report.

Ever since the hardline Islamist regime took over Afghanistan in 2021, it has asked fighters, judges and leaders to implement the stringent Sharia law as per their interpretation, a pattern which they have followed from the early days of their previous rule in the 1990s.

And in reaction to the report of the UN, which called the methods of the Taliban “archaic corporal punishment”, the militant group stated that it is obliged to follow Islamic law's strict interpretation.

As per the report, 274 men, 58 women and two boys have been publicly flogged by the Taliban leaders in the last six months in at least 43 instances.

The report appealed to the interim regime to halt such practices.

“In the event of a conflict between international human rights law and Islamic law, the government is obliged to follow the Islamic law,” said the Taliban foreign ministry in response to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan's (UNAMA) detailed report released on Monday.

The majority of people were punished after they were convicted of adultery and “running away from home,” said the report, while some were also flogged for other crimes like theft, homosexuality, consuming alcohol, fraud and drug trafficking.

In its report, the UNAMA pointed to a statement given by a Taliban official who stated that “cutting off of hands is very necessary for security” for its “deterrent effect, but that the cabinet was still assessing whether punishments would be conducted in public”.

Under the incumbent Taliban regime, the first corporal punishment was recorded on October 20, 2021, when the de facto district court convicted a man and woman of adultery and both of them were publicly lashed 100 times each.

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UNAMA human rights chief Fiona Frazer, decrying the violations, said, “Corporal punishment is a violation of the Convention against Torture and must cease. The UN is strongly opposed to the death penalty and encourages the DFA to establish an immediate moratorium on executions”.

Frazer, in his comments, was referring to the Department of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan.

Separately, the UN agency had documented at least 182 instances the sentences were given directly by the Taliban during the height of insurgency between 2010 and August 2021, which led to 213 deaths and 64 injuries.

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