Despite its promises to apply Sharia law less harshly after its return to power in August 2021, the fundamentalist movement returns to an ultra-rigorist interpretation of Islam.
Le Monde
Haibatullah Akhundzada, supreme chief of Afghan Taliban, ordered the judges to enforce all the sanctions provided for by Islamic law, public executions, lapidations and amputations included, a few days after a series of liberticide laws for women.
In a tweet From Sunday, November 13, Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesperson for the movement, specifies that he gave the order, after a meeting with a group of magistrates. Haibatullah Akhundzada, who has not been filmed or photographed in public since the return to power of the Taliban in August 2021, directed the country by decree from Kandahar (South), cradle of the Islamist organization.
“Carefully examine the files of thieves, kidnappers and seditious,” writes the spokesperson, citing Akhundzada. For “these files under which all the conditions of Sharia (…) have been met, you are obliged to apply” all of the planned sanctions, he continues, evoking the most serious crimes with regard to Islamic law, Who include adultery, falsely accuse someone of this offense, alcohol consumption, theft, banditry, apostasy and rebellion.
Flagellations
Videos and photos showing Taliban inflicting flogging on people accused of various offenses have multiplied for a year on social networks. Reports also report flagellations for adultery in rural areas after Friday prayer, but it is difficult to verify its authenticity.
When they returned to power, the Taliban had promised to be more flexible in the application of Sharia law, but they have largely returned to the ultra-rigorist interpretation of Islam in force in their first passage to power , from 1996 to 2001. They then punished in public the authors of theft, kidnappings or adultery of sentences such as the amputation of a member or the stoning.
“If they really start to apply” the hardest aspects of Islamic law, it will be to seek “to arouse the fear that society has gradually lost after their return to power”, explains Rahima Popalzai, legal analyst and politics in Afghanistan, interviewed by the France-Presse agency. “As a theocratic structure, the Taliban also want to strengthen their religious identity within Muslim countries”.
For fifteen months, women, in particular, have seen hard rights acquired to evaporate and they are increasingly excluded from public life. Most of them have lost their jobs or receive a wages of misery to stay at home. They are not allowed to travel either without being accompanied by a male parent and must cover themselves with a burqa or a hidjab when they leave their home. Last week, the Taliban also forbade them to enter the parks, gardens, sports halls and public baths.
The latest attacks in Afghanistan could also explain this order to apply Sharia law more strictly, according to Rahima Popalzai. “With the recent attacks, their claim [to have brought security in the country] has also been questioned, but they mean to the world:” We can keep our promises “,” she said. ” p>
On September 30 in Kabul, a suicide bombing affected 54 people, including 51 girls in a student training center located without a district of the Shiite minority community Hazara in Kabul.