Afghanistan goes back to dark ages: Taliban rulers have ordered dozens to be killed by stoning and four convicts to be executed by pushing a wall onto them
Figures released by the Taliban's own Supreme Courtshow the group also publicly flogged more than 1,000 people across Afghanistanin 2025, including at least 150 women.
By OLIVIA ALLHUSEN, FOREIGN NEWS REPORTER
Published: 12:59 GMT, 31 December 2025 | Updated: 13:08 GMT, 31 December 2025
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.
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. Pictured: People leave after watching the public execution of a murder convict at a stadium in Khost, Afghanistan, December 2, 2025
The data points to a sharp rise in corporal punishment, with Kabul recording the highest number of cases. Pictured: An ambulance transports the body of a murder convict after a public execution by the Taliban authorities in Khost, Afghanistan, December 2, 2025
Illustrative image shows an alleged murderer being executed before a crowd in Kabul in 1998
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.