Afghan women will be publicly flogged and stoned to death for “crimes like adultery”, Taliban’s supreme leader Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada has purportedly declared in a new audio message in which he also challenges Western democracies. The audio, released online by the national broadcaster, also announces the strict implementation of the Islamic code of Shariah.
“You say it’s a violation of women’s rights when we stone them (women) to death… But we will soon implement the punishment for adultery. We will flog women in public. We will stone them to death in public,” Akhundzada declared.
“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.”
According to Akhundzada, women’s rights as advocated by the international community are against the Taliban’s rigid interpretation of Islamic Sharia.
“Do women want the rights that Westerners are talking about? They are against Sharia and clerics’ opinions, the clerics who toppled Western democracy. 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… It does not mean we would now just sit and drink tea. We will bring Sharia to this land,” he added. “It did finish after we took over Kabul. No, we will now bring Sharia into action.”
Akhundzada rarely appears in public or leaves the Taliban heartland in Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar province. He surrounds himself with other religious scholars and allies who oppose education and work for women.
Despite initial promises of a more moderate rule than during their previous stint in power in the 1990s, the Taliban have imposed harsh measures since seizing Afghanistan in August 2021 as US and NATO forces were pulling out.
As they did during their previous rule of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban gradually reimposed their harsh interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia, barring girls from school beyond the sixth grade and women from almost all jobs, public spaces, gyms and recently closing beauty salons.
The measures have triggered a fierce international uproar, increasing the country’s isolation at a time when its economy has collapsed — and worsening a humanitarian crisis.
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