Taliban authorities in Afghanistan have issued a draconian decree that makes sodomy punishable by death and allows men to beat their wives so long as they don’t break bones or leave visible, lasting wounds.
Human rights campaigners have decried the move as “devastating” and warned that women’s recourse to justice would be further curtailed.
“The men have the right to rule completely the women,” rights activist Mahbouba Seraj told CNN from Kabul. “His word is the word of law – that’s it.”
The decree was issued last month but has only recently come to international attention after it was leaked to the Afghan rights group Rawadari, which published it in the original Pashto. The Afghanistan Analysts Network then translated the document into English.
The punishments it details have already been widespread in Afghanistan, but this is the first time that they have been so clearly codified since the United States and its allies withdrew from the country in August 2021, allowing the Taliban to return to power.
The Taliban insists that all its rulings are in line with Islamic Sharia law and have religious legitimacy.
“If a husband beats his wife so severely that it results in a broken bone, or an open wound, or a black and blue wound appears on her body, and the wife appeals to a judge, then the husband will be considered an offender,” the code says, according to the Afghan Analysts Network’s translation. “A judge should sentence him to 15 days’ imprisonment.”
The punishment for animal abuse is more severe. The decree says that anyone who forces animals like dogs or cockerels to fight should be sentenced to five months in prison.
The decree also permits a father to punish their child for, among another things, failing to pray. The punishment for a teacher who so severely beats a student that a bone is broken is to be removed from their job.
“I cannot tell you the number of calls I’m getting from women who are desperate all over Afghanistan,” Seraj, the women’s rights activist, told CNN. “When you have these kinds of laws being implemented and the husband can decide on everything then forget it. At least before there was a fear of the courts, judges. Women would complain. Now what?”
Source: BBC
