The Taliban have ordered dozens of people to be killed by stoning and four convicts to be executed by having walls collapsed onto them, exposing the scale of brutality under the regime.
Figures released by the Taliban’s own Supreme Court show the group also publicly flogged more than 1,000 people across Afghanistan in 2025, including at least 150 women.
The data points to a sharp rise in corporal punishment, with Kabul recording the highest number of cases.
Official Taliban statements reveal that 1,030 people were whipped in public this year for offences including theft, running away from home and acts deemed contrary to Islamic law.
The number of floggings in 2025 is almost double previous annual totals, underlining how corporal punishment has become a routine since the group returned to power in August 2021.
Since then, the Taliban have publicly flogged at least 1,848 people nationwide, including around 250 women, according to cumulative figures.
All provinces reported cases over the past year, with punishments often carried out in public before crowds.
In addition to floggings the Taliban have staged at least three public executions in 2025 in the provinces of Khost, Badghis and Paktia.
In the most recent case in Khost, a man convicted of murder was executed in front of tens of thousands of spectators, with the sentence reportedly carried out by a 13-year-old, promptin international condemnation.
The man, named only as Mangal, was shot to death on December 2 in front of an 80,000-strong crowd in a sports stadium in eastern Afghanistan.
Overall, figures show that over the past four years the Taliban have handed down at least 178 death sentences under the retribution principle known as qisas, along with 37 stoning sentences and four punishments involving walls being collapsed onto convicts.
So far, at least 12 death sentences have been carried out.
Human rights groups say the punishments violate international law and basic human rights standards.
‘The Taliban use extremist interpretations of religion to justify repression and cruelty,’ said human rights activist Sima Noori.
‘Public flogging without fair trials and in the absence of a constitution is a clear violation of human rights.’
Residents in Kabul said the punishments have created a climate of fear.
‘The Taliban have turned Afghanistan into a prison,’ said one resident. ‘Men and women are flogged in front of crowds, stripping them of dignity.’
International organisations including the United Nations, Human Rights WAtch and Amnesty International have repeatedly condemned the punishments and called for them to stop.
Earlier this year, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for the Taliban’s leader and the head of its Supreme Court on charges including crimes against humanity and gender-based persecution.
The Taliban have rejected international criticism insisting they are enforcing what they describe as Islamic law.
