UN experts denounce Taliban treatment of women as crime

ISLAMABAD — The Taliban treatment of women and girls in Afghanistan may amount to a crime against humanity and should be investigated and prosecuted under international law, a U.N. team of experts said Friday.

The Taliban promptly rejected the allegation.

The statement by the U.N.-appointed experts followed a confirmation from the Taliban that three women were among 12 people lashed on Wednesday in front of hundreds of spectators at a provincial sports stadium. It signaled the Taliban’s resumption of a brutal form of punishment that was a hallmark of their rule in the 1990s.

And on Nov. 11 in Taloqan in northeastern Takhar province, 10 men and nine women were lashed 39 times each in the presence of elders, scholars and residents at the city’s main mosque after Friday prayers. They were accused of adultery, theft and running away from home.

The U.N. experts said the latest Taliban actions against women and girls have deepened existing rights violations — already the “most draconian globally” — and may constitute gender persecution, which is a crime against humanity.

The Taliban overran Afghanistan in August 2021 as American and NATO forces were in the final weeks of their pullout from the country after 20 years of war. Despite initially promising a more moderate rule and allow for women’s and minority rights, they have restricted rights and freedoms and widely implemented their harsh interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia.

They have banned girls from middle school and high school, restricted women from most employment, and ordered them to wear head-to-toe clothing in public. Women are also banned from parks, gyms, and funfairs.

Lashings in public, as well as public executions and stoning for purported crimes were common across Afghanistan during the first period of Taliban rule, from 1996 until 2001, when they were driven out in a U.S.-led invasion following the September 11 terrorist attacks. The Taliban had sheltered al-Qaida and its leader, Osama bin Laden.

The experts’ statement did not specifically mention the cases of public lashings but said the Taliban have beaten men accompanying women wearing colorful clothing or without a face covering.

“We are deeply concerned that such actions are intended to compel men and boys to punish women and girls who resist the Taliban’s erasure of them, further depriving them of their rights, and normalizing violence against them,” it said.

It urged the Taliban to reinstate the rights and freedoms for…