The Taliban has reportedly resumed public stoning of women in Afghanistan. Human rights organizations claim that the Taliban was able to roll back the law because of silence from the global community.
Last Saturday, the Taliban’s main leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, announced that they would begin implementing Sharia law in Afghanistan. Below that, women will be freely flagged and stoned for ‘adultery’.
Taliban-controlled Radio-Television Afghanistan broadcast a sound finale on Saturday. Hibatullah was heard to say, ‘We will flog the women… We will stone them freely (for adultery).’
Hibatullah also said, ‘You (women’s rights organisations) can call it a violation of women’s rights. But they acted in conflict with our standards of majority rule. Hibatullah portrayed the move as a continuation of the Taliban’s war against Western influence. He said, Taliban’s work is not finished by capturing Kabul, it is a fair start.
While the news is disturbing, women’s rights organizations in Afghanistan are not surprised. They feel that what was cleared as security and rights for the nation’s 14 million women and girls, is currently on the verge of completion.
Safia Arefi, chief legal counsel for the country’s human rights organization Women’s Window of Trust, said the announcement meant the show was set in the 1990s, taking Afghan women back to the darkest days of the Taliban.
Arefi said that with this announcement by the Taliban leader, an untapped chapter of women’s discipline has begun and Afghan women will be plunged into deep poverty. At present there is no one to spare them. He commented that the general community has chosen the path of silence for the violation of women’s rights.
“Two years ago they didn’t have the power to speak, but now they’re talking about stoning,” said Sahar Fetrat, an Afghan analyst at Human Rights Watch.
Sahar Fetrat said, “One by one, the Taliban have come to this event to test their strict system. Because they have no one to answer to. We should warn everyone, if they are not stopped now, more will come.”
Afghan women’s secret words
After seizing control in 2021, the Western-backed Taliban suspended Afghanistan’s structure and existing criminal and correctional codes. There they replaced a strict and fundamentalist interpretation of Sharia law. They actually barred women attorneys, judges who worked under the previous government.
Samira Hamidi, a rights activist at Absolution Universal, said the Taliban had destroyed Afghan women’s educational services for the past two and a half years.