Taliban flog women in football stadium
Three females among those lashed in public after social media invitations are taken up by thousands
THOUSANDS of Afghans flocked to watch the Taliban’s first public flogging in a football stadium since they last ruled in the 1990s.
Fourteen people, including three women, were given between 21 and 39 lashes in front of a crowd of 5,000 people in a sports arena in eastern Afghanistan on Wednesday.
They were “lashed in the presence of scholars, authorities and people… for different sins including adultery, robbery and other forms of corruption in a football stadium in Logar [province]”, said the Taliban’s supreme court.
Omar Mansoor Mujahid, the militant group’s spokesman for the province, said the women were freed after they had received their lashes but some of the men were jailed.
Two other people were separately flogged in the eastern Laghman province, it was reported. Attendees were invited on social media but were asked not to film the event.
“Islamic law is the only solution for problems in Afghanistan and must be implemented,” said Enayatullah Shuja, the deputy governor of Logar.
It is the second confirmed use of Sharia punishment since Hibatullah Akhunzada, the Taliban’s secretive supreme leader, last week announced that the strict interpretation of Islamic law would be implemented across the country.
It involves public corporal punishment for an array of crimes, something that was a hallmark of the Taliban’s first period in power. At least 19 people were also lashed 39 times each in the northeastern city of Taloqan on Nov 11 for alleged adultery and theft.
In the 1990s, the group carried out stonings, beatings and executions in football stadiums. They believed the public spectacle would discourage dissent against their rule.
Afghans took to social media to contrast the draconian punishments with the jubilant scenes at the football World Cup. “While stadiums in Qatar are hosting the World Cup matches these days, stadiums in Afghanistan have once again become a place for public lashing and execution,” wrote one user.
The Taliban continues to struggle to maintain law and order in Afghanistan or run a functioning economy, with approximately 90 per cent of Afghans suffering from food insecurity.
In the central province of Uruzgan, officials report children overdosing or becoming addicted to opium after their parents gave them the drug to stave off hunger or instead of painkillers.
The International Committee of the Red Cross warned this week that many would struggle to survive the winter.
Protests against Taliban rule have been sporadic but have continued. More than a dozen women demonstrated briefly in Kabul yesterday, as females are increasingly squeezed out of public life.
“We will fight for our rights to the end and we will not surrender,” read a sign carried by the protesters, who chanted “women, life, solidarity”.
Taliban fighters kept a close watch, while cars carrying intelligence service officials circled the neighbourhood.
Organisers said later that the Taliban had briefly detained three of the demonstrators, releasing them after they were “humiliated and insulted”.