RASC News Agency: The Supreme Court of the Taliban announced that, as part of its ongoing punishment of suspects, it recently lashed an individual in Paktika province on charges of “theft,” delivering 20 lashes. According to a press release from the Taliban’s Supreme Court on Wednesday, Mar 13, this individual was lashed by members of the group approximately 12 days ago in the “Barmal” district.
In this press release, the Taliban stated that the chief of this court had approved the whipping sentence for this individual, and according to the court, a three-month prison sentence had also been imposed on the accused person. The Taliban’s Supreme Court did not provide further details on how the whipping sentence was carried out on this individual. This comes as the Taliban have previously taken similar actions in several provinces.
In recent cases, the Taliban have publicly whipped suspects in provinces such as Farah, Laghman, Ghazni, and Jowzjan, sentenced them to death, and also issued prison terms for them. Currently, many human rights organizations have strongly criticized the Taliban’s Sharia courts for their handling of cases involving accused individuals, considering them lacking in professional and legal competence to issue criminal judgments.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations also called last year for an immediate halt to the execution of sentences by the Taliban. Some of the accused have reported not having access to defense lawyers during the trials, and the implementation of Taliban court judgments has been perceived as one-sided.
