KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – The Taliban has publicly flogged five individuals, including two women, in Afghanistan’s Logar and Badakhshan provinces, the group’s Supreme Court announced Tuesday.
In Logar’s Mohammad Agha district, four individuals were punished on Tuesday, May 13, for alleged “illicit relationships” and “sodomy.” Each received between 20 and 39 lashes in front of local authorities and residents.
On the same day in Badakhshan, a man was flogged 39 times in the yard of the Taliban police headquarters in Yaftal district on charges of “sodomy,” the court said in a separate statement.
Since returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban have reinstated harsh interpretations of Sharia law. This includes punishments such as public floggings, executions, and stonings, similar to their rule in the 1990s.
The regime has already carried out ten public executions for murder and subjected hundreds of individuals, including women and members of the LGBTQ+ community, to public floggings for various offenses.
Reports indicate a surge in public floggings in recent months, with punishments taking place almost daily, often over charges the Taliban label as “moral corruption.”
UN Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett documented at least 311 cases of corporal punishment in the second half of 2024—a 22% increase from the first half. Among those punished were at least 47 women.
Human rights organizations, the United Nations, and activists have strongly condemned these practices, calling them a violation of fundamental human rights and a means of instilling fear among the Afghan population.
The Taliban, however, defends its actions as the enforcement of Sharia law, accusing critics of misinterpreting or opposing Islam.
