Systematic exclusion of Afghan women under Taliban

Afghani women and girls are being systematically excluded from virtually all aspects of life under the Taliban, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said.

While giving the opening statement at the press conference today, Turk said, “Afghanistan, where the continued systematic exclusion of women and girls from virtually all aspects of life is unparalleled in this world. It deprives the country as a whole of the benefit of the significant contributions that women and girls make,” according to the statement released by United Nations Regional Information Centre.

He deplored the continued use of corporal and capital punishment, including the most recent instances of lashings and executions carried out in public this month, in flagrant violation of Afghanistan’s international human rights obligations.

“I urge the de facto authorities to establish an immediate moratorium on future executions and to abolish the death penalty,” Turk said in a statement.

This statement came following the first public execution of a man charged with murder since the militant group took over the country last year.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said that the execution took place in a sports stadium in western Farah province early morning. Mujahid said that hundreds of people witnessed the execution, including the top officials of the group, as per the Voice of America News report. He said that the executed person was tried in the Taliban courts and subsequent appellate tribunals.

Zabihullah Mujahid claimed that the executed person in the court had “confessed to stabbing to death” a resident of Farah and stealing his belongings, including a motorcycle, as per the news report.

Furthermore, Mujahid said that the man was found guilty and the “sentence of retribution” was declared. He stressed that execution was carried out as per the “qisas” law which stipulates that the person is punished in the same way as the victim was murdered.

“He was found guilty, and the sentence of retribution was enforced on the murderer,” VOA News quoted Zabihullah Mujahid as saying.

“The killer was shot three times by the father of the deceased with an assault rifle,” he added.

Taliban spokesperson emphasized that the decision to enforce the ‘Sharia sentence’ was “very carefully” analyzed, as per the VOA News report. According to him, the Taliban’s supreme leader Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada approved the decision.

Prior to the execution, the flogging of dozens of people by Taliban authorities took place in front of hundreds of spectators in a football stadium in Kabul and several provinces of Afghanistan in the past month.