Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: The scenes of a public flogging in a Taliban stronghold in northern Afghanistan showed two women in blue burqas kneeling nearly motionless as a man beat them over their heads and bodies with a cane.
The women, whose names have not been released, had been found guilty of breaking the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Shari’a law after police said they visited a local health clinic without a male relative being present. They were also said to have been seen by Taliban fighters communicating on mobile phones.
While the fundamentalist Taliban has long forced women to be accompanied by a male relative when venturing outside their homes, reports of the second charge appear to point to the recent enforcement of strictures on the use of mobile devices, particularly smartphones, in militant-controlled areas.
It was unclear if the women, both of whom were married, were punished simply for using the phones or specifically for communicating with men outside their immediate families — a charge that has led to public floggings in the past.
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