A resurfaced account details the 2012 Taliban execution of a 22-year-old Afghan woman named Najiba, who was shot in the back after being accused of adultery in a hastily convened "desert court". The case, which caused international and domestic outrage at the time, is being revisited now as campaigners warn that similar brutality against women is returning to Afghanistan, following the Taliban's reintroduction in January this year of a decree allowing the death penalty for blasphemy and vaguely defined "immoral" or "corrupt" offences.

Najiba was reportedly found staying at the house of a Taliban commander, Mullah Qader-e "Lang", after fleeing her husband's home three months earlier; it remains unclear whether she was there voluntarily. Following the commander's death, her own husband handed her over to Taliban officials to settle the matter, leading to her execution before a crowd of men. Rights groups Equality Now and Medica Mondiale say the death penalty, stoning and public flogging are again likely to disproportionately target Afghan women, drawing comparisons to conditions under 1990s Taliban rule and citing recent moves such as the legalisation of domestic abuse and the banning of girls from secondary education.