in Afghanistan, the return of public humiliations

Published on : 04/07/2023 – 18:26

In the images, two men are seen in a square in Kabul, standing on a platform high enough for all passers-by to see. They were accused of minor thefts and a Taliban court decided to “humiliate” them as a “punishment” by dressing them as women, in a country considered the worst in the world for womenaccording to the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security.

“They want to convey that these men are weak and cowardly”

Huda Khamoosh is an Afghan women’s rights activist who was forced to flee her country in 2021 after the Taliban returned to power.

In the eyes of the Taliban, women are a symbol of weakness and helplessness. Women are only there to bear children and cook for their husbands. It is therefore normal that wearing feminine clothes is an unspeakable humiliation for a man. They mean these men are weak and cowardly and don’t deserve to be called men : they are women.

It’s quite ironic to think that their suicide bombers did the exact same thing : they wore women’s chadors to go unnoticed and blow themselves up [régulièrement lors d’attentats entre 2001, lorsque les Taliban ont perdu le pouvoir après l’invasion américaine, et 2021, lorsque les Taliban ont repris le contrôle de l’ensemble de l’Afghanistan, NDLR].

As far as I remember, this is the first time the Taliban have used this form of “punishment” for criminals, but they have done much worse since August 2021. Women are not allowed to go out alone, they must always be accompanied by an adult male from their family, they do not have the right to study, they do not have the right to work, there are cases of divorced women who remarry their ex- husband.

And to top it off, women are whipped and tortured in public, as we saw in the 1990s.

Among the most brutal images of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in the 1990s are videos of the stonings and public executions of men and women in stadiums across the country. These images had shocked the whole world.

When the United States invaded Afghanistan in 2001, the Taliban lost power and these public punishments ceased for a short time. A few years later, when the Taliban regained control of some territories, stonings, floggings and public executions resumed in many rural areas, despite the establishment of a US-backed Afghan government.

>> READ ON THE OBSERVERS: Afghanistan: The lynching with whipping of a woman reminds that the Taliban courts are still raging

Since its return to power, the fundamentalist group has returned to its old habits. As early as September 2021, the Taliban hung the bodies of four men accused of kidnapping in one of the main squares of Herat, in western Afghanistan.

According to Afghan Witness, a collective that documents human rights violations committed by the Taliban, the latter inflicted at least 36 public punishments in Afghanistan between October 2022 and March 2023. The group has documented executions and public floggings ordered by Taliban courts. They estimate that there would be more than 200 victims.

“The victims are sometimes members of the anti-Taliban resistance […] and many are simple people accused of petty theft, drug trafficking or adultery”

Mokhtar Wafayi is an Afghan dissident who now lives abroad. He is an expert in Taliban operations.

When the Taliban conquered Afghanistan in 2020, they first carried out random cruel acts here and there in the country, but they were soon stopped by the Taliban chain of command. That doesn’t mean they didn’t torture or kill people, they did, but it was on the sly, as discreetly as possible.

During years of negotiations with the Americans in Doha, they had promised to respect the human rights charters and laws that the previous Afghan government had signed.

But after a year, when they saw that the international community had no intention of recognizing them as the valid sovereign rulers of Afghanistan, they came back to their true selves. [malgré les relations diplomatiques entre certains pays et les Taliban, aucun de ces pays ne les a encore reconnus comme les dirigeants légitimes de l’Afghanistan, NDLR].

Ultimately, all Taliban leaders are extremists, but some of them, who have been in Doha for years and participated in negotiations with Washington, wanted to limit or at least cover up the atrocities as much as possible. committed by the Taliban in order to obtain international recognition for their regime. But after months without success, the most powerful, including Mullah Haibatullah, leader of the Taliban, have lost patience.

On November 14, 2022, Mullah Haibatullah issued a decree emphasizing that Islamic Sharia should be applied in Afghanistan, including executions and “hudûd” [terme islamique désignant la torture ou les châtiments publics pour un crime, NDLR]. It was from this moment that the number of tortures and public executions increased.

On December 7, 2022, they publicly executed a man in Farah in the presence of senior Taliban leaders in a stadium.

The victims are sometimes members of the anti-Taliban resistance, sometimes members of rival groups are publicly executed, such as those of the Islamic State, and many are simply people accused of petty theft, drug trafficking or adultery. .

In March 2023, Amnesty International publicly called the UN Human Rights Council to address the deteriorating human rights situation in Afghanistan “Since taking over the country in August 2021, the Taliban have violated the rights of women and girls to education, work and freedom of movement, decimated the protection and support system for fleeing domestic violence, detaining women and girls for minor violations of discriminatory rules, and contributing to increased rates of child marriage, early marriage and forced marriage in Afghanistan.”