After reintroducing executions in the squares a fortnight ago, the Taliban relaunched public flogging on Thursday. Simultaneously, in two very different and distant provinces, forty-four inmates have been flogged and humiliated in sports stadiums, in front of thousands of their countrymen. It has happened in Pashtun Uruzgan and also in Tajik Badakhshan, united by the Taliban whip.
Although the bystanders were all men, the victims included women, two in the first case and four in the second. Three others have seen their sentence postponed for undisclosed reasons. The crimes or misdemeanors for which the inmates of Tirankot, the capital of Uruzgán, have been convicted include theft, robbery with weapons, illicit relationships and sodomy, according to a ruling by the self-styled Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, at the Tajik-majority end of the country, in Badakhshan, another morbid flogging spectacle was taking place at the Fayzabad stadium. In this case, there were 21 convicted "for immorality or illegal relationships."
Uruzgan is a Pashtun province near Kandahar, the cradle of the Taliban and the hometown of their supreme guide, Haibatulah Ajundzada as before the late Mullah Omar. While the Tajik-dominated north is where the Taliban have always had the most trouble gaining a foothold.
So despite initial promises of restraint, the Taliban are reverting to many of the medieval practices of their first dictatorship. However, it must not be forgotten that his inspiration at the time was none other than Saudi Arabia, which only abolished flogging in public - not executions - in 2020.
