In January, the Taliban released a new law authorizing executions across eleven categories of people. Article 16 gives the Taliban the ability for “discretionary execution” for Taliban-defined crimes such as “armed opposition to the Taliban, promoting beliefs contrary to Islam, sorcery and repeat criminal acts.” The provision’s broad and vague language has sparked serious concerns about arbitrary enforcement and abuse of women and minorities.
The new penal code also allows for the execution of people who promote “un-Islamic” beliefs. This includes any and all leaders, teachers, and individuals who follow a sect other than Sunni Islam. While the penal code doesn’t specify the Shi’a sect of Islam, the second-largest religious following, it does implicitly place religious minorities at severe risk under the Taliban’s newest interpretation of Islamic law in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan is a very diverse country, with Shi’a Muslims, Sufis, and other ethnic minorities such as Hazara, Tajik, Uzbek, and Turkmen communities living there. While ethnically and religiously diverse, the Taliban has a history of ethnically targeting minority groups with violence and brutal killings. After the Taliban first took power in 1996, they labelled Hazaras as “heretics,” killing over 2000 Hazara men and boys in Mazar-e Sharif. Their violent persecution of Hazaras and other ethnic and religious minorities in Afghanistan will only be emboldened after this new penal code that gives them the ability to discriminate and kill their fellow countrymen on the basis of their religious beliefs or simply their ethnic backgrounds.
The introduction of “discretionary execution” in the penal code also turns laws into weapons against diversity and pluralism. The law has become a mechanism to bolster conformity instead of serving and protecting its citizens. This addition further fractures communities by eroding the idea of a national identity and social cohesion. Instead, it promotes an idea that people should be separated based on their ethnic and religious identity and that identity and different opinions are punishable offenses. A society that is dictated by fear cannot build trust, and without trust social unity is almost impossible.
History shows that the isolation and targeting of minority communities not only endangers lives, but also undermines Afghanistan’s ability to flourish as a nation defined by its diversity. Sustainable stability is built on inclusion across identities and backgrounds. The Taliban’s new penal code erodes this foundation by codifying exclusion into law. In doing so, it deepens social divisions, entrenches marginalization, and risks perpetuating cycles of conflict long after the Taliban are gone.