A total of 19 men and women have been flogged in public as judicial punishment in Afghanistan’s Tajar province, the Afghan Supreme Court said Saturday.
The convicts have been convicted of crimes such as adultery, leaving their father’s or husband’s house with another man or theft. Each of them received 39 lashes at a ceremony held a week ago in the provincial capital, Taluqan.
The public punishment is intended as a warning to the criminals and a lesson to the guilty, according to the statement of the Supreme Court, controlled like all other Afghan institutions by the Taliban.
Taliban leader Mullah Hebatullah Ajundzada recently ordered Afghanistan’s judges to fully apply Sharia — or Islamic law — against those who commit a range of crimes that could be punishable even by public amputations or stoning for offenses such as robbery, kidnapping or sedition.
It is not the first time that the Taliban leader has defended the need to «totally» apply Sharia law in Afghanistan since the fundamentalists took power in August 2021 following the flight of President Ashraf Ghani.
The fundamentalists have installed a government marked by a lack of women and representatives of other political and ethnic groups, while facing domestic and international criticism for limiting the rights of the population, especially women and girls.
