Nineteen people including nine women were publicly lashed in Afghanistan this month for adultery, the Taliban admitted today.
The barbaric punishments are among the first major signs of the ruling group applying its strict interpretation of sharia (Islamic law) to criminal justice.
"After consideration and a strict sharia investigation, each of them were sentenced to 39 lashes," supreme court spokesperson Mawlawi Enayatullah said, adding that nine women were among those lashed.
The punishments took place in the northeastern province of Takhar on Nov. 11 after Friday prayers on the order of provincial courts, the spokesperson said.
Though it was one of the first major indications of systemised corporal punishment under the hardline Islamist Taliban administration, it was not immediately clear whether such penalties would be meted out nationwide.
The Taliban's supreme spiritual leader this month met with judges and said they should carry out punishments consistent with sharia law, according to a court statement.
Other countries have been scrutinising the Taliban's track record on human rights and women's rights since they took over in August 2021 after a two-decade insurgency.
No foreign government has formally recognised the Taliban's administration and many have already heavily criticised its reversal on signals they would open secondary schools nationwide for girls in March.
Public lashings and executions by stoning took place under the previous 1996-2001 rule of the Taliban.
Such punishments later became rare and were condemned by the foreign-backed Afghan governments that followed, though the death penalty remained legal in Afghanistan.
Afghan women will no longer be allowed in parks, a spokesperson for the Taliban's morality ministry said, in part because they had not been meeting its interpretation of Islamic attire during their visits.
Mohammad Akif Muhajir, the spokesman for the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, made the comments in an interview with local media and, when asked about the restrictions, referred Reuters to audio of the interview.
"For the last 14 or 15 months we were trying to provide an environment according to Sharia (Islamic law) and our culture for women to go to the parks," he said.
"Unfortunately, the owners of parks didn't co-operate with us very well, and also the women didn't observe hijab as was suggested. For now, the decision has been taken that they are banned," he said, referring to the group's interpretation of the Islamic dress code for women.
Almost all women in Afghanistan wear a head scarf, or hijab, in public. However, the Taliban have said women should wear long flowing clothes that cover their bodies and also cover their faces, such as the all-enveloping burqa. Some women in Kabul and other urban centres do not cover their faces in public and others wear a surgical face mask.
Western governments have said the Taliban needs to reverse its course on women's rights, including a U-turn on signals they would open girls' high schools, for any path towards formal recognition of the Taliban government.
It was not clear how long the park restrictions would last and whether they would be extended across Afghanistan.
Park operators in western Herat and northern Balkh and Badkahshan provinces said they had not been asked to stop women entering yet.
Some women in those provinces told Reuters they were watching the restrictions in Kabul closely and were worried they might be applied in other provinces.
"Here they haven't restricted women and girls yet but you will never know when they change their minds," said a woman in Badakhshan who asked to remain anonymous.
The Taliban say they respect women's rights in accordance with their interpretation of Islamic law.
