Executed with a bullet to head for ‘adultery’: The Taliban execution that horrified Afghanistan… and terrifying signs such brutality is set to return
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.
- 2012 Taliban execution of Afghan woman Najiba resurfaces amid fresh warnings
- Taliban reintroduced death penalty decree for "immoral" offences in January
- Rights groups warn women again face executions, stoning and flogging
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Afghanistan has been under Taliban rule since the group returned to power in August 2021, after Western-backed forces withdrew. Since then, the Taliban have imposed increasingly strict controls on women and girls, including bans on secondary and higher education for girls and restrictions on women's movement and work. Reports of harsh punishments carried out under the group's interpretation of Islamic law have periodically drawn international condemnation.
This is not the first time such punishments have made headlines. During the Taliban's previous period in power in the 1990s, public executions, floggings and stonings, often targeting women accused of moral or sexual offences, were carried out in similar fashion, including in front of crowds. The 2012 killing of a young woman named Najiba, shot after being accused of adultery, became one of the most widely reported examples of this practice and is often cited when discussing the risks women face under Taliban rule.
Human rights organisations, including groups focused on women's rights such as Equality Now and Medica Mondiale, monitor and document these issues, drawing on witness accounts, leaked material and testimony from Afghans. Their concern now is that a decree reinstated by the Taliban this year, expanding the use of the death penalty for offences such as blasphemy and vaguely defined "immoral" conduct, could pave the way for a return to the kind of punishments seen in earlier years.