As the Taliban resumes public executions of women, human rights groups condemn the damning international silence.
In a chilling, yet sadly, unsurprising move, the Taliban has announced its intention to resume the barbaric practice of publicly stoning women to death for adultery in Afghanistan. Some human rights groups say the significant regression in women’s rights has been enabled by the international community’s failure to hold the Taliban accountable.
Taliban Supreme Leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, recently made the announcement via an audio broadcast on a Taliban-controlled radio station. In his address, Akhundzada declared they would be enforcing their interpretation of Sharia law, which includes the reintroduction of publicly stoning women to death for adultery.
In the audio broadcast, Akhundzada said: “We will flog the women… we will stone them to death in public [for adultery]. You may call it a violation of women’s rights when we publicly stone or flog them for committing adultery because they conflict with your democratic principles. [But] I represent Allah, and you represent Satan.”
Despite promising a more democratic rule, since seizing power in August 2021, the Taliban has systematically dismantled institutions that provide services to Afghan women. Female lawyers and judges have been banned, girls are not allowed to attend school after turning 11 years old and women are barred from public spaces such as parks, gyms, and bathhouses.
According to Afghan Witness, a research group monitoring human rights in Afghanistan, Taliban-appointed judges have ordered 417 public floggings and executions in the past year, with 57 of them targeting women.
Human rights activists are calling out the international community’s silence on the Taliban’s atrocities since they took control in 2021, asking it now to step up and start to fight back for the rights of Afghan women who continue to suffer under the Taliban’s oppressive regime.
