Taliban Publicly Flogged at Least 36 Individuals Within a Week

Over the past week, Taliban have expanded the implementation of corporal punishments across various provinces in Afghanistan. Between Saturday, May 31, and Thursday, June 5, at least 36 individuals were publicly flogged under rulings by Taliban courts.

According to official reports released by the Taliban Supreme Court, these individuals were sentenced to corporal punishment and imprisonment by Taliban judicial and security bodies on various charges, including sexual relations outside of marriage, same-sex relations, selling alcoholic beverages and narcotics, theft, murder, and running away from home. Many of these sentences were carried out publicly in the presence of judicial staff, local authorities, and representatives of the Taliban’s Department for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.

On Saturday, May 31, the Taliban Supreme Court announced in a statement that four individuals, including one woman, had been flogged in Faryab province. According to the statement, these individuals were accused of extortion and fraud and received 35 and 30 lashes in public. In addition, two of them were sentenced to seven and six years in prison, and the other two to five years.

On Sunday, two men in Farza district of Kabul were sentenced to 20 lashes and one year in prison each for same-sex relations. On the same day, one woman and one man in Roy-Do-Ab district of Samangan province were flogged 39 times for sexual relations outside of marriage, according to Taliban court statements. In the districts of Tani and Sabari in Khost province, seven people were sentenced to 35–39 lashes and imprisonment ranging from three months to ten years for charges including sexual relations outside of marriage, murder, and theft.

On Monday, Taliban forces flogged a man in Badakhshan province 39 times in public for selling alcoholic beverages. In Laghman province, a woman and a man were each sentenced to 30 lashes and six months in prison for "running away from home and helping someone flee."

On Tuesday, a woman in Parwan province was flogged 39 times for sexual relations outside of marriage. That same day, a Taliban court in Balkh province sentenced three individuals (two women and one man) to 30–39 lashes for what the group referred to as “moral corruption and illicit relations.”

On Thursday, a person in Surobi district of Paktika province was sentenced to 26 lashes for theft. In Khost province, two people were sentenced to 35 and 39 lashes for selling narcotics. In Parwan province, a woman and a man were each sentenced to four years in prison and 35 lashes for fleeing and helping someone flee from home. In Kabul, nine people were sentenced to six to seven months in prison and 10 to 20 lashes for selling narcotics.

Although international human rights organizations have repeatedly called for an end to corporal punishments, the Taliban have significantly increased the use of flogging in recent months.

On Monday, June 2, Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, called for the immediate halt of flogging by the Taliban on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter). He described these punishments as violations of human rights laws and emphasized that in 2025, the number of floggings in Afghanistan has risen alarmingly and must be stopped immediately.