World News
The Taliban’s reclusive leader signaled the hardline Islamist group would begin stoning and flogging women in public again, according to a report.
Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada delivered the message meant for Western countries over the weekend in a voice message on state television.
“You say it’s a violation of women’s rights when we stone them to death,” he told state media, according to the Telegraph.
“But we will soon implement the punishment for adultery. We will flog women in public. We will stone them to death in public.”
The Taliban seized control after the United States’ disastrous withdrawal from the Middle Eastern country in August 2021.
At the time of the chaotic exit, fears immediately grew that women’s rights there would quickly crumble.
“These are all against your democracy but we will continue doing it. We both say we defend human rights – we do it as God’s representative and you as the devil’s,” Akhundzada said.
He also assailed the international community for pushing for women’s rights that are in contrast with the Sharia.
“I told the Mujahedin that we tell the Westerners that we fought against you for 20 years and we will fight 20 and even more years against you,” he said.
“It did not finish [when you left]. It does not mean we would now just sit and drink tea. We will bring Sharia to this land,” the depraved leader also said, per the Telegraph.
“It did finish after we took over Kabul. No, we will now bring Sharia into action.”
The cruel edict enraged human rights groups, which criticized the international community for not standing up strongly for Afghan women.
Safia Arefi, the leader of the Afghan human rights group Women’s Window of Hope, said the declaration would force women in the country back to the brutal days of the 1990s.
“With this announcement by the Taliban leader, a new chapter of private punishments has begun and Afghan women are experiencing the depths of loneliness,” Arefi told the Guardian.
“Now, no one is standing beside them to save them from Taliban punishments. The international community has chosen to remain silent in the face of these violations of women’s rights.”
Sahar Fetrat, an Afghan researcher at Human Rights Watch, said the Taliban didn’t have the “courage they have today” to pledge to stone women as they do now because “there is no one to hold them accountable for the abuses.”
“Through the bodies of Afghan women, the Taliban demand and command moral and societal orders,” she told the Guardian. “We should all be warned that if not stopped, more and more will come.”
Akhundzada’s grim voice message is how the supreme leader typically communicates, as he’s never been spotted in public, according to the Telegraph. There are a few portraits of him.
The Taliban previously barred women and girls from parks, gyms, universities, nongovernmental jobs and the United Nations for allegedly not wearing proper hijab or violating gender segregation rules.