Taliban to resume stoning women to death for adultery— returns to the darkest days of its 1990s rule.
The Taliban’s supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, said at the weekend that his group would, as part of the Sharia law, resume publicly flogging and stoning women to death for adultery.
Akhundzada also expressed his disagreement with the western democracy and the idea of women’s rights, noting that he did not care if the west may see the enforcement as something that will “conflict with” their “democratic principles”.
“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,” he said.
However, the announcement of this reintroduction of the enforcement in Afghanistan has sparked serious concern among the international community, where many have argued that flogging and stoning women to death over adultery should be viewed as serious violations of human rights.
But speaking last Saturday, in an audio broadcast on the Taliban-owned Radio Television, Afghanistan, Akhundzada said, “We will flog the women … we will stone them to death in public “for adultery”: quoting because: “I represent Allah, and you represent Satan
Meanwhile, a lawyer and head of the Afghan human rights organisation Women’s Window of Hope, Arefi feared that the announcement would only take Afghan women back to the “darkest days of Taliban rule in the 1990s”.
“With this announcement by the Taliban leader, a new chapter of private punishments has begun and Afghan women are experiencing the depths of loneliness,” the lawyer, Arefi said.
“Now, no one is standing beside them to save them from Taliban punishments. The international community has chosen to remain silent in the face of these violations of women’s rights,” he added.
Mr Arefi also said “Taliban’s work did not end with the takeover of Kabul” and was just part of its plan to complete the rest of its struggle against western control and head back to the full introduction of “Sharia law in all Muslim countries”.
A number of Afghan women’s rights groups, however, knew this would happen, but maybe had been delayed all these years by the western-backed constitution.
An Afghan researcher at Human Rights Watch, Sahar Fetrat said the Taliban “didn’t have the courage they have today to vow stoning women to death in public two years ago” but sadly they “now they do”.
She said, “They tested their draconian policies one by one, and have reached this point because there is no one to hold them accountable for the abuses. Through the bodies of Afghan women, the Taliban demand and command moral and societal orders. We should all be warned that if not stopped, more and more will come.”
“However, their leader’s latest endorsement of women’s public stoning to death is a flagrant violation of international human rights laws, including Cedaw [the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.”
Since taking power, in August 2021, the Taliban has dissolved the western-backed constitution of Afghanistan and suspended existing criminal and penal codes, replacing them with their rigid and fundamentalist interpretation of sharia law, reported the DailyMail.
Apart from the new law of flogging and stoning women to death for committing adultery, the Taliban group also has removed their educated women from various professional jobs, including occupying positions as female lawyers and judges.
