21 June 2023 :

Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers on June 19, 2023 carried out what is believed to be the second confirmed public execution since the religious group took power in 2021, according to the country’s Supreme Court.
The court had sentenced to death a man identified only as Ajmal from the capital Kabul who was found guilty of murdering five people in two separate incidents last year.
The execution was carried out with an assault rifle by the son of Siad Wali, one of five men killed by Ajmal. It took place outside a mosque near the offices of the provincial governor in eastern Laghman province according to Islamic law, the high court said in a statement.
Relatives of the four other men who were killed by Ajmal witnessed the execution.
The latest public execution is likely to draw criticism from the international community. It comes just a month after the United Nations in a report strongly criticized the Taliban for carrying out public executions, lashings and stonings since seizing power, and called on the country’s rulers to halt such practices.
In May, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said in the past six months alone, 274 men, 58 women and two boys were publicly flogged in Afghanistan.
The Taliban-run Supreme Court in Kabul said when the case against Ajmal was brought to the government’s attention, it thoroughly examined and investigated and said three different courts eventually upheld the death sentence.
The court said the final approval for the execution was ordered by Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada after supervising a separate probe into the murder case.
Akhundzada was named the Taliban leader in 2016 after a U.S. airstrike in Pakistan killed his predecessor, Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Mansour. It was the second known public execution since the Taliban takeover, even though rights groups and the international community have opposed such extreme punishments.
The first was in December last year, when Taliban authorities punished an Afghan convicted of murdering another man. The execution was carried out with an assault rifle by the victim’s father in western Farah province before hundreds of spectators and many top Taliban officials.
During the previous Taliban rule of the country in the late 1990s, the group regularly carried out public executions, floggings and stonings of people convicted of crimes in Taliban courts.
After they overran Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban initially promised to allow for women’s and minority rights. Instead, they later restricted rights and freedoms, including imposing a ban on girl’s education beyond the sixth grade.

04 December 2023 :

Nine people were flogged in an Afghan Taliban-ruled court on September 17, 2023. The eight men and one woman, who had been tried and are serving jail time, received 20-39 lashes, according to the information and culture department on social platform X, in the southern province of Zabul.
The Supreme Court said the individuals in the provincial court were punished for committing "robbery and illegal relations crimes."
Without providing further details, the court said "Tazir" punishment was applied.
"Tazir" refers to punishment for offenses at the judge's discretion and usually results in "moderate" flogging intended as a form of discipline and rebuke.

08 September 2023 :

The Taliban's foreign minister has criticised its leading economic ally and political supporter, Tehran, for the high number of executions in Iran, Farsi media reported. 
The Taliban itself is accused of systemic violation of human rights.
Last week, Amir Khan Muttaqi condemned Tehran for its violations of human rights and the high number of death penalties in Iran in response to last year's anti-establishment demonstrations.
"Those of you who always recommend that we have an inclusive government in Afghanistan, do you have such a government in your country?" Mottaqi said during a conference in Kabul, referring to demands made by Iranian officials.
Despite the extensive economic and political cooperation between Tehran and Kabul, Iran has yet to recognise the Taliban government. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian had previously said that the precondition for such recognition would be forming an "inclusive government" in Afghanistan.
"Do you recognise the rights of your citizens? The number of inmates we have in prisons is fewer than the number of people you execute," Mottaqi added.
After China, Iran has the highest number of annual executions worldwide, and in 2022, 582 people were executed by hanging.
No official data is available regarding the number of executions in Afghanistan, but in an August report, the UN said that since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, it had documented the extrajudicial killing of at least 218 military and government officials from the former government despite a nationwide pardon.

16 June 2023 :

(June 11, 2023) - Iran Hands Over Scores Of Afghan Prisoners To Taliban
Over 100 Afghans serving prison sentences in Iran were handed over to the Taliban on Sunday.
“As a result of the efforts of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs… 101 Afghan prisoners were transferred again in Nimruz in connection with the agreement reached with the Islamic Republic of Iran,” said the Taliban’s Foreign Ministry on Monday.
Fazl Mohammad Haqqani, Chargé d'affaires of the Afghan Embassy in Tehran told Radio Farda, the Persian Service of Radio Free Europe in Prague that “250 to 260 more prisoners will be handed over to the Islamic Emirate at Islam Qala border on Wednesday.”
According to Haqqani, the prisoners were mostly incarcerated on charges of drug trafficking and fighting, but none of them were sentenced to death.
Human rights organizations had earlier announced at least six Afghan citizens were executed in Iranian prisons and some more have received the death penalty.
At least 457 Afghan prisoners were also handed over to Afghanistan by Iranian authorities back in March, amid deep concerns over the Taliban's human rights record.
Despite international pressure not to recognize Kabul's government, Tehran is handing over the inmates to the Taliban which may put their lives in danger.

https://www.iranintl.com/en/202306120249

07 June 2023 :

(June 2, 2023) - U.N. Body Condemns Torture of Guantánamo Prisoner Awaiting Capital Trial
A United Nations human rights panel has issued a damning report that blames the United States and 7 other nations for the C.I.A.’s “torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment” of a Saudi prisoner who now awaits a death penalty trial at Guantánamo Bay.
The U.N. Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD), based in Geneva, also named as responsible the United Arab Emirates, where the prisoner, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was captured in 2002, and Afghanistan, Lithuania, Morocco, Poland, Romania and Thailand, where he was held as part of a rendition and interrogation program run by the George W. Bush administration.
The Working Group is composed of five independent experts of balanced geographical representation. Together, they investigate individual cases and produce reports and opinions in order to fulfil the mandate. They meet three times a year in Geneva.
In the 18-page report adopted on Nov. 15 last year, but only discreetly made public on June 2, the WGAD (which has no enforcement authority), determined that all eight countries were "jointly responsible for the torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of Mr. al-Nashiri".
"The submissions that Mr. al-Nashiri was tortured stand unrefuted," it said, also finding that all eight countries were responsible for his "arrest, rendition and arbitrary detention".
Nashiri's lawyer Sylvain Savolainen described the decision as "immensely powerful and important".
The working group, made up of five independent experts, whose opinions are not binding but carry reputational weight, called on the countries to "take the steps necessary to remedy the situation of Mr. Al-Nashiri without delay".
Taking into account all the circumstances of the case, they said "the appropriate remedy would be to release Mr. al-Nashiri immediately", and provide him compensation and reparations.
And they called for "a full and independent investigation of the circumstances surrounding the arbitrary deprivation of liberty of Mr. al-Nashiri, including an independent inquiry into his allegations of torture".
They noted among other things that the medical care given there "has been and remains grossly deficient".
"The Working Group is obliged to remind the government of the United States that all persons deprived of their liberty must be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person," they said.
The experts stressed that while they were addressing Nashiri's case in particular, "the conclusions reached here also apply to other detainees in similar situations a Guantanamo Bay".
And they cautioned that "under certain circumstances, widespread or systematic imprisonment or other severe deprivation of liberty, in violation of international law, may constitute crimes against humanity".
The group called for the immediate release of and compensation for Mr. Nashiri, who is accused of orchestrating the bombing of the U.S. Navy destroyer Cole off Yemen nearly 23 years ago. It said the Guantánamo war crimes court, which was devised to prosecute only non-U.S. citizens, deprives Mr. Nashiri of “the fair trial guarantees that would ordinarily apply within the judicial system of the United States.”
The finding is the latest in a series of U.N. investigations condemning the previous and current treatment of detainees being held at Guantánamo Bay at a time when lawyers and the International Committee of the Red Cross have protested inadequate health care for the last detainees there.
The U.N. bodies are also refocusing attention on the Pentagon prison, which holds 30 prisoners of the war on terrorism, including 17 men for whom the Biden administration is seeking countries to offer them resettlement.
The report could be presented to a sentencing jury of U.S. military officers in Mr. Nashiri’s case. In October 2021, a military jury in the case of another Guantánamo prisoner who was tortured by the C.I.A. urged clemency and called that prisoner’s abuse “a stain on the moral fiber of America.”
U.S. investigations and testimony in Mr. Nashiri’s case show he was waterboarded by psychologists working as contractors for the C.I.A., confined naked to a claustrophobic wooden box, and subjected to threats and violence, including rectal abuse, by agency staff members.
His military commissions case has been in pretrial proceedings since 2011. 17 U.S. sailors were killed in the suicide bombing of the Cole in Aden Harbor, and prosecutors argue the case can be tried in the court that was created in response to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Mr. Nashiri’s lawyers describe him as a torture survivor who suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and other conditions attributed to untreated physical, psychological and sexual abuse.
Mr. Nashiri has more hearings this month focused on what evidence can be used at his eventual capital trial. The judge in the case is retiring, and a new one is expected to take over this summer. 
In the case submitted to the working group last June, lawyers maintained that after Nashiri was captured in Dubai in 2002, he spent four years shuttled between various CIA black sites -- in Afghanistan, Lithuania, Morocco, Poland, Romania and Thailand, -- being tortured and abused.
He arrived at Guantanamo Bay in 2006, where he remains detained.
He was only charged in 2008, and his military commission death penalty case still remains in pre-trial proceedings.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/04/us/politics/un-guantanamo-torture.html
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20230605-un-body-faults-us-other-states-over-guantanamo-prisoner-torture

09 May 2023 :

The United Nations on May 9, 2023 called out the Taliban for their widespread use of corporal punishment, including public lashings and amputations, and execution in violation of international rights.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said since the Taliban seized control of the country in August 2021, their authorities have implemented corporal punishment and the death penalty.
The United Nations said the first documented use of corporal punishment since the takeover came on Oct. 20, 2021, in the Kapisa province when a man and woman received 100 lashes each by a de facto district court in front of religious scholars.
"Since this first instance in October 2021, the de facto authorities have continued to implement corporal punishment -- both following judicial decisions and on an ad hoc basis," the report said.
The U.N. said the use of corporal punishment "increased significantly" on Nov. 13, 2022, after Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesperson for the de facto authorities tweeted the Taliban Supreme leader had met with judges to emphasize their obligation to carry out such punishments.
Lashings had been used mostly for "so-called moral crimes," including for sex outside of marriage and for girls and women "running away" from their homes, often to escape domestic violence, the report said.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people were all "at high risk" under the Taliban for public lashings.
The report said those convicted of crimes of adultery to murder have been given the death penalty, often by hanging and stoning the public.
"So long as the Taliban shows disdain for international human rights law, these barbaric practices are likely to continue," Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director for Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
"Governments engaging with the Taliban, including U.N. Security Council members, should press for an end to these abuses and make clear that international sanctions will remain in place and could be expanded if they continue."