According to a source in the Sholgarah District of Balkh Province, the Taliban’s primary court in this district has sentenced a woman to stoning to death on the charge of adultery. However, the Taliban’s court found the man “deserving of punitive sentences” for the same crime.
Local sources claim that the Taliban have forcefully taken the woman to the district court and forced her to confess. It has been said that she is illiterate and hasn’t understood the court’s judge’s words.
According to some sources, Mr. Mohammad Rashid, the so-called Taliban judge in the Sholgarah district, has issued the sentence based on a mufti’s fatwa, named Abu Zubair Hamidullah Qanet.
The incident took place in Arlat village in Sholgarah district. The woman has been forced to confess four times.
On March 24th, 2024, the Taliban leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada delivered a speech on the radio and said, “We implement Allah’s order. You [westerners] say that stoning women is a violation of women’s rights. we will enforce the hudood (the punishment for crimes like adultery, and theft…) tomorrow. We stone women to death and lash criminals in public”.
Several social media activists condemned the Taliban’s act and demanded the group stop such barbaric behaviors. Roqia Sarwari, a women’s rights activist, wrote in a post on her Facebook page, “Stoning to death is against human dignity, principles, and values.” Moreover, she emphasized that stoning to death is not only an indication of barbarism and cruelty but also represents the worst form of moral decline. She strongly urged the human rights organizations to stand up against the injustice and brutality of the Taliban.
Nilofar Mateen, another social media activist posted a video on X (formerly known as Twitter) calling the action of the Taliban as an example of gender apartheid. “The UN must take immediate action. action to stop the gender apartheid against Afghanistan’s women” she added.
Some women’s rights and human rights activists consider stoning to be one of the most heinous, cruel, and barbaric acts that the Taliban Group has always committed in Afghanistan.
Stoning is one of the harshest and most primitive rules that are currently being implemented in some Islamic countries, including the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
Since the Taliban came to power in August 2021, Sharia laws which include flogging in public and stinging to death have been resumed in Afghanistan. on the 30th of April this year, the local court of the Taliban sentenced another woman in Bamiyan to be stoned to death for a similar case.
