What happened?
In early January, Taliban officials quietly unveiled a new penal code (the Principles of Criminal Procedures) for implementation by Taliban courts throughout Afghanistan.
Across 58 pages, 10 chapters, and 119 articles, the code institutionalizes oppression and encourages physical punishment of those who have been unjustly criminalized by the regime leaders.
Drawing largely on the Taliban’s fanatical interpretation of Sharia law and aggressive cement authority, the new code seeks to enforce absolute obedience to Taliban Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada. This includes strict adherence to over 200 existing orders and decrees (a significant number of which target women and other marginalized populations).
Why it matters
Since the Taliban resumed power in 2021, they have eagerly leveraged brutality and methods of subjugation in their pursuit of power and control. Human suffering and widespread persecution have been central to their quest for power and profit.
The rollout of the new penal code is yet another significant step in their attempt to normalize their utilization of widespread corruption, extremism, and tyranny.
The new legal framework further undermines the country’s constitution and the national penal code instituted by the prior government and obliterates basic legal protections and fundamental human rights for most Afghan citizens.
From dancing to public dissent, the code prohibits freedom of expression and standardizes draconian penalties. For example, insulting Taliban leaders is now officially punishable by 20 lashes and six months imprisonment across every Taliban court.
Essentially, equal before the law doesn’t apply in the Taliban’s Afghanistan.
The code establishes a hierarchal caste system – religious scholars, noble elites, middle class, lower class – formalizing and encouraging discrimination based on the Taliban’s engineering of social designations. Senior officials and regime loyalists are largely shielded from extreme penalization, while ordinary citizens – especially women and minorities – face violent and capricious punishments for absurd violation like flogging, detention, fines, and executions.
Women are relegated as property throughout the document, with things like freedom of movement, religious freedom, and access to basic protections officially denied, according to multiple Afghan-led independent news platforms like Zan Times and Rukhshana Media. Visiting family members without a husband’s permission is subject to a penalty of three months’ imprisonment. Victims of abhorrent levels of domestic violence by their husbands have been abandoned to their abusers, who now only face a 15-day maximum sentence, if convicted.
The new framework also neglects to protect children from the most horrific forms of assault. For example, the penal code fails to even mention, let alone criminalize/punish, psychological, sexual, or physical abuse of minors, though it suggests corporal punishment of 10-year-old kids by their fathers (for failure to observe prayers).
The one exception is Article 30, which bans teachers from using violence against students that specifically results in “‘bone fracture,’ ‘torn skin,’ or ‘bodily bruising,’” according to Afghan human rights organization, Rawardi.
The Taliban also appear to both acknowledge and permit the use of slavery in Afghanistan. The specific designation of “slave” (Ghulam) is seen across various sections of the code, which in many ways legitimizes slavery and the exploitation of human beings, Rawardi notes.
In a country where 81% of children have experienced physical punishment (and more than half experiencing “severe punishment”) and the exploitation and trafficking of children is on the rise – as child brides, bachi baza victims (“a practice in which men exploit boys for social and sexual entertainment”, according to the U.S. Trafficking in Persons report), child soldiers, and child laborers especially – this is not surprising, particularly as the Taliban themselves are responsible for many of these abuses.
The bottom line
For nearly five years, the Taliban have regularly demonstrated that they remain just as brutal and corrupt as they were during their first reign of terror. Openly operating as a mafia of thieves, Taliban leaders prosper at the expense of the Afghan people. The new penal code is just the latest example.
Unfortunately, the global community appears to have lost interest. Despite multilateral solidarity condemning the Taliban’s actions and denying them international legitimacy, little has been done to actually hold Taliban leaders (or their enablers) to account.
As the Bush Institute has documented throughout our Captured State project, all of this is inexcusable and has aided the Taliban’s efforts to expand and expedite their assault on the Afghan people and regional and global security.
