2 Women Among 27 Publicly Flogged in Zabul and Helmand

Local sources in the southern Zabul and Helmand provinces report to Kabul Now that the Taliban have publicly flogged 27 people, including two women, in the cities of Qalat and Lashkargah.

Sources, who chose to stay anonymous, told Kabul Now that the Taliban court issued the lashing sentence and implemented it before dawn today December 14 in Sheikh Mati High School Sports Stadium in Qalat city, Zabul and in the Lashkargah City Sports Stadium in Helmand.

According to sources in Zabul, a woman was found guilty of having a premarital relationship with men and was sentenced to receive 39 lashes and three years in prison. Another woman in Zabul was sentenced to receive 20 lashes and one year in prison on the charge of elopement.

Five men were found guilty of theft, adultery and having premarital relations with women and were sentenced to receive between 10 and 39 lashes and about one month to three years in prison, the source in Zabul added.

Meanwhile, Mawlawi Mohammad Qasim Riyaz, the Taliban deputy director of information and culture in Helmand province, also says that the Taliban’s court found 20 men guilty of theft and having premarital relations with women.

Riyaz also said that the court sentence of public flogging was implemented on the accused today, December 14. He did not comment anything about the number of lashes. But some sources reported that each of the accused received between 35 and 39 lashes.

This is while the Taliban have recently publicly flogged women and men on the charges of various crimes, including premarital relations, theft and so on.

In a very recent case, the Taliban group also publicly executed a man accused of murder in Farah province which drew worldwide reactions.