The Supreme Court of the Taliban regime said in a statement today (Thursday, March 11) that members of the group in Balkh publicly flogged six people, including one woman.
The Municipal Court of First Instance has sentenced each of the defendants to 39 lashes on charges of “selling alcohol and engaging in an extramarital affair.
At the same time, the regime’s Office for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice announced that six people in the province have been arrested on charges of “price gouging.”
The arrests come as UN officials and human rights activists accuse the agency’s officials of arbitrary and extrajudicial detentions.
Earlier, UN experts reported that the lack of a fair judiciary and a constitution has left the Taliban—especially those affiliated with the Office for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice—unrestricted.
According to these experts, members of the Taliban regime have continued arbitrary detentions without a preliminary investigation and without clear evidence of charges.
Gul Chehreh Yaftali, a women’s rights activist from Afghanistan, has repeatedly criticized the group’s process of punishment and public flogging, saying that women’s escape from domestic violence is in practice equivalent to receiving flogging by the Taliban.
The group consistently publicly flogs women who run away from home for various reasons, especially due to domestic violence, labeling them as “runaways.”
Photo credited: Internet
