Amid growing concerns over corporal punishment by the Taliban and increasing calls to end such practices, the group has intensified its campaign of arrests and public floggings in recent days.
In the latest case, Taliban officials in Kunduz province publicly flogged a man and a woman on charges of “extramarital relations,” according to a statement from the group’s court.
The Taliban’s primary court in Qala-e-Zal district sentenced each of the accused to one year in prison and 30 lashes, carried out in front of onlookers.
Just hours earlier, the group had also flogged two individuals in Paktia province in public on charges of “sodomy” and sentenced them to prison terms.
Previously, human rights activists, expressing alarm over the resurgence of corporal punishment, stated in a report that the Taliban have turned stadiums into sites of execution and torture.
The Taliban regime — a self-declared and illegitimate authority operating in the absence of a constitution and an independent judiciary — has publicly flogged hundreds of people over the past three years.
