The Taliban Supreme Court says 19 people, including one woman, have been flogged in Balkh, Nimroz and Ghor on various charges, continuing public corporal punishment despite international criticism.
According to Taliban statements, one man in Shortepa district of Balkh province was publicly flogged 30 lashes on charges of same-sex relations.
The Taliban’s primary court in Nimroz province also punished 17 people on Thursday on charges including “assaulting father”, illicit relations, theft and same-sex relations.
Those convicted were sentenced to between five months and eight years in prison and received between 15 and 39 lashes.
At the same time, a Taliban primary court in Saghar district of Ghor province flogged a woman 10 lashes on Thursday on charges of “moral corruption.”
Despite opposition from international organisations to torture and corporal punishment, the Taliban have continued to flog individuals in public. The group describes such punishments, imposed by its courts, as the implementation of “Islamic Sharia”.
The Rawadari human rights organisation said in a report on March 25 that the Taliban had carried out cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments over the past year, including issuing qisas sentences for six people, stoning one woman and flogging 857 individuals.
It also said that during the same period, 611 people, including 48 women and 35 children, were deliberately and mysteriously killed or injured by the Taliban and unidentified individuals.
According to the report, the victims were mainly former government employees, protesters, civil society and human rights activists, community elders and people accused by the Taliban of cooperating with opposition groups.
