More than two years after returning to power and after dramatically curtailing women’s rights in Afghanistan, the Taliban have reinstated the death penalty of public stoning for women.
The Taliban’s supreme leader, Himbatullah Akhundzada, announced over the weekend that they would begin re-imposing sharia law in Afghanistan. This includes the reinstatement of public flogging and stoning of women for adultery.
“You may call it a violation of women’s rights when we stone them or flog them in public for committing adultery because (the punishments) conflict with your democratic principles,” he said, adding that “I represent Allah and you represent Satan.”
He justified, as the Guardian notes, the move as a continuation of the Taliban’s fight against Western influences. “The work of the Taliban did not end with the capture of Kabul, it just began,” he said.
Since taking power in August 2021, the Taliban have abolished Afghanistan’s Western-backed constitution and suspended existing criminal and penal codes. They replaced them with their rigid and fundamentalist interpretation of sharia law. They also banned female lawyers and judges, targeting many of them for their work under the previous government.
Last year alone, Taliban-appointed judges ordered 417 public executions and floggings, according to a research group that monitors human rights in Afghanistan. Of these, 57 were women.