The Taliban has published a new penal code enshrining some of its most backward practices into the law of the land in Afghanistan, with women in particular set to suffer at the hands of the courts.
Signed by the hardline Islamist group’s supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, the 90-page criminal code includes anachronistic stipulations harking back to Islamic scripture, such as different levels of punishment depending on whether the offender is “free” or “a slave”.
