The Taliban will soon begin stoning women to death in public, the radical group’s Supreme Leader announced as he declared war on Western democracy.
Addressing Western officials in a voice message broadcast on state television on Saturday, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada called Western human rights advocates “representatives of the devil.”
‘You say it is a violation of women’s rights when we stone them to death. But we will soon implement the punishment for adultery,” she told the West in her harshest comments since taking over Afghanistan in 2021.
‘We will whip women in public. We will stone them to death in public,’ she announced.
‘All this goes against your democracy, but we will continue to do it.
“We both say that we defend human rights; we do it as representatives of God and you as representatives of the devil,” he added.
Horrifying images of Afghan woman screaming and cowering as Taliban stone her to death
‘You are treating women like animals, are these your rights?’
Afghanistan’s state television, now controlled by the Taliban, broadcasts voice messages claiming to be from Akhundzada, who has never been seen in public.
In a new affront to international advocacy for women’s rights, Akhundzada criticized calls for such rights as contradictory to the Taliban’s interpretation of Islamic Sharia law.
‘Do women want the rights that Westerners talk about?
“They are against Sharia and the opinions of the clerics who overthrew Western democracy,” he said.
‘One is God’s league and another is the devil’s and we are on God’s side,’ he stated.
The Taliban, despite initial promises of a more moderate government, began carrying out harsh public punishments soon after coming to power.
The punishments are similar to those applied during his previous government in Afghanistan in the late 1990s.
Akhundzada has called on Taliban foot soldiers to be resilient in opposing women’s rights and said the war against democracy and Western values will continue for decades to come.
“I told the mujahideen to tell the Westerners that we fought against you for 20 years and we will fight 20 years and even more against you,” he said.
‘Taking Kabul did not mean that we would now sit in offices and drink tea.
“It did not end (when you left), now we will put Sharia into practice in this land,” he warned.
Footage purportedly from 2015 shows the Taliban stoning a woman to death, six years before their return to power in Afghanistan.
Akhundzada has called on Taliban foot soldiers to be resilient in opposing women’s rights and said the war against democracy and Western values will continue for decades to come.
He criticized Western values of human rights and women’s freedoms, saying that Taliban scholars and religious clerics would persistently resist the West and its form of democracy in Afghanistan.
His comments have sparked outrage among Afghans, leading some to urge the international community to increase pressure on the Taliban.
Naseer Faiq, Afghanistan’s chargé d’affaires to the United Nations, said that deciding the fate of Afghans without their consent “is not acceptable.”
‘At what cost? For more than two decades, under this slogan, thousands of innocent Afghans, including brainwashed Taliban, have been killed, the country has been destroyed, millions have been forced to migrate, and Afghanistan has plunged into a deep crisis,” he said in a post on X, referring to Akhundzada’s Comments
‘Is not sufficient? “Profiting from the blood of the Afghan people is unacceptable and prohibited in Islam,” she added.
The Taliban regained power in August 2021, following the collapse of the internationally supported government and the withdrawal of all US-led Western troops after nearly 20 years of involvement in the Afghan war.
Illustrative image showing a suspected murderer executed before a crowd in Kabul in 1998.
Akhundzada has stopped girls’ education in Afghanistan beyond the sixth grade and imposed increasing restrictions on women’s participation in public and private workplaces, including a ban on working at the United Nations and other aid organizations.
Women are prohibited from taking long road and plane trips without being accompanied by a male family member, and are restricted from visiting public places such as parks, gyms and public bathrooms.
The Taliban leader justifies these measures by stating that they follow Afghan culture and Islamic principles.
Since leaders of the impoverished country with one of the most oppressed people in the world seized power by force, Afghanistan’s economy has collapsed, pushing millions into poverty.