Taliban Flog 13 People, Including Five Women, in Khost and Jawzjan

The Taliban’s Supreme Court has announced that five women and eight men were publicly flogged in the provinces of Jawzjan and Khost.

In a statement on X today (Saturday, April 12), the court said that on Thursday, two women in Darzab district of Jawzjan province in northern Afghanistan were each sentenced to 39 lashes in public for alleged “illicit relationships” and “running away from home.” They were also sentenced to three years in prison.

Subsequently, in another statement, the court reported that in Khost province in eastern Afghanistan, one woman and two men were flogged for “adultery,” while two other women and six men were publicly flogged on charges such as “illicit relationships,” “insulting religious symbols,” “bribery,” and “false reporting.”

According to the statement, each of these individuals received between 35 and 39 lashes and were sentenced to prison terms ranging from two to five years.

These rulings come as the Taliban have recently intensified public corporal punishments and executions.

Yesterday, the Taliban executed four men accused of murder in front of hundreds of spectators in the northwestern province of Badghis, the western province of Farah, and Nimruz in southwestern Afghanistan.

Human rights organizations, including the United Nations Human Rights Commission and Amnesty International, have condemned these executions and the increase in public corporal punishments, calling them violations of human dignity.

These organizations have called for the immediate cessation of what they describe as “anti-human rights actions” by the Taliban.