Uncensored Footage of Taliban Punishing Women in Public *WARNING Disturbing Historical Content

When the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, many  thought the worst violence had already passed. But   behind hidden cameras, a different kind of terror  began, especaily for women. What was captured on   secret and uncensored footage reveals a cruelty  so cold that it still shocks the world today. Afghanistan did not suddenly collapse when  the Taliban appeared.

 The country had been   bleeding for years. In December 1979, the  Soviet Union sent its army into Afghanistan   to support a weak communist government.  What followed was a long and brutal war   that reached into every home. Bombs destroyed  villages. Farms were burned. Roads vanished.   By the time Soviet troops finally left  in February 1989, more than one million   Afghans were dead, and millions more  were wounded or permanently disabled.

The war forced families to flee with nothing.  Around five million people escaped across borders,   mainly into Pakistan and Iran. Many lived  for years in crowded refugee camps made   of tents and mud huts. Children grew up  without schools. Parents had no steady   work. An entire generation learned to survive.

  Inside Afghanistan, entire villages were wiped   off the map. Many families never found  out what happened to missing relatives. When the Soviets left, people hoped the  nightmare was over. It was not. In April 1992,   the Soviet-backed government collapsed. Instead  of peace, Afghanistan fell into a civil war.   Former allies turned their weapons on each other.  Armed groups fought street by street for power.  

Kabul became one of the most dangerous  cities on Earth. Between 1992 and 1996,   rockets and artillery slammed into neighborhoods  almost every day. Homes, schools, and hospitals   were hit. More than 50,000 civilians were  killed in Kabul alone during those years. There was no real government and no  working courts.

 Armed men ruled by   force. Checkpoints popped up everywhere.  People were dragged out of cars and buses.   Homes were searched without warning. Anyone  could be accused of anything. For women,   daily life became terrifying. Many were kidnapped  from the streets. Others were assaulted or forced   into marriage by fighters. Girls stopped going  to school because the roads were too dangerous.  

Mothers kept daughters hidden  indoors to protect them. Law disappeared. Ordinary people felt trapped  between armed groups that cared nothing for   civilian life. Many Afghans became exhausted and  desperate. They did not want freedom or politics   anymore. They wanted the shelling to stop.  They wanted someone, anyone, to bring order.  

That deep desperation created an opening.  And into that opening stepped the Taliban. They began quietly in late 1994 in Kandahar,  a city badly damaged by years of fighting.   Kandahar had become a symbol of chaos.  Warlords controlled roads. Truck drivers   were robbed daily. Girls were taken from  schools. Families were powerless to stop it.

Most Taliban fighters were very young. Many  had grown up in refugee camps in Pakistan. They   had known war their entire lives. Many had lost  fathers or brothers. For many of these young men,   the world was simple. There was right  and wrong, obedience and punishment. The movement was led by Mullah Mohammad  Omar.

 He was a former fighter against the   Soviets and had lost an eye in battle.  He lived quietly and avoided attention.   That mystery added to his power. His followers  believed he was chosen to restore order. They   called him Amir al-Mu’minin, a title meant  to show religious authority and obedience. The Taliban promised safety on the roads,  an end to corruption, and justice based on   their strict religious rules. At first, many  locals supported them. They disarmed warlords.  

Robberies dropped. Checkpoints disappeared. For  people tired of fear, this felt like relief. But this order came with a heavy cost. On September 27, 1996, the Taliban entered  Kabul. The city was exhausted from years   of war and offered little resistance.  Fighters moved in quickly. That same day,   they dragged former president Mohammad  Najibullah out of a UN compound where he   had been hiding for years. He was beaten,  killed, and his body was hanged in public.

Within days, life for women changed completely.  New orders were announced and enforced   immediately. Women were banned from leaving home  without a male relative. Girls’ schools were shut   across the country. Female teachers lost their  jobs overnight. Women working in offices, aid   organizations, hospitals, and media were dismissed  on the spot. Families lost incomes instantly.

A special force was created to enforce  these rules. It was called the Ministry   for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention  of Vice. Its officers patrolled the streets   every day. They carried sticks, cables, and  whips. They stopped women at random. If a   burqa was too short, punishment followed.  If shoes made noise, punishment followed.  

If a woman spoke loudly or looked nervous, she  could be accused of bad behavior and beaten. There was no warning and no appeal.  Punishment happened where everyone   could see. Streets became places of  fear. Markets became dangerous. Women   learned to walk with their heads down and  move quickly, hoping not to be noticed.

Hospitals became places of tragedy. Many  female doctors were banned from working,   but women were also forbidden from being treated  by male doctors. Pregnant women were turned away.   Simple infections became deadly. Childbirth  became extremely dangerous. By 1997, health   groups reported that maternal death rates had  reached around 1,600 deaths per 100,000 births.  

Many women died quietly at home because  they were too afraid to seek help. By 1997, the Taliban were no longer punishing  women quietly in back alleys or secret prisons.   They turned public punishment into something meant  to be seen by as many people as possible. For the   Taliban, fear was a way of governing.

 If people  watched others being hurt right out in the open,   they were more likely to obey the rules without  question. In towns and cities across Afghanistan,   markets and busy streets became places of  punishment, but none became more infamous   than Ghazi Stadium in Kabul. Locals still call  it the Kabul Sports Stadium, but many remember   it as the place where harsh punishments  were carried out in front of huge crowds.

The punishments were scheduled on Fridays, the  main day of prayer and gathering in Afghanistan.   That meant crowds were already gathering  in large numbers after mosque services.   Taliban authorities would announce the  punishments over loudspeakers beforehand,   telling people to come and watch. These  weren’t small groups.

 Reports and witness   accounts suggest tens of thousands of people  could fill the stadium for one of these events. Women accused of “crimes” were brought  into the stadium in front of everyone.   These so-called crimes included things  like adultery, running away from home,   or disobeying a male relative.

 There were no  real trials like in courts that most people   know. Judges or Taliban commanders often made  decisions quickly, and there was no room for   defense or appeal. Once convicted, the punishment  was carried out in full view of the crowd. One of the most widely documented cases took place  on November 16, 1999. A woman known as Zarmeena   was executed in the middle of Ghazi Stadium in  Kabul.

 She was accused of killing her husband   with a hammer during a dispute. The Taliban held  her in custody for nearly three years before   carrying out the sentence. It was one of the first  public executions of a woman under Taliban rule. On that day, Zarmeena was brought into the stadium  in a vehicle. She wore a blue burqa that covered   her from head to toe.

 Two female police officers,  also in burqas, held her arms as she walked to   the center of the field. A young Taliban fighter  with a rifle stood behind her. When she was made   to kneel, the gunman shot her three times in the  head. Many families had brought their children   to watch because the Taliban announced  the execution ahead of time on the radio. The execution was filmed secretly by a woman  in the crowd who risked her life to do it.  

That footage was smuggled out of Afghanistan and  shown to the world. It became one of the most   powerful pieces of evidence of how the Taliban  used public punishment to control people. Inside   the country, though, people had grown used to  such cruelty, not because they supported it,   but because refusing to accept it openly often  meant punishment for themselves or their families.

Punishments at Ghazi Stadium didn’t stop  with Zarmeena’s execution. They included   amputations for alleged theft, floggings for moral  offences like “immodesty,” and other executions. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International  documented repeated cases where women were   stopped randomly and beaten in public.  Teenagers were not spared.

 Age offered   no protection. Intent did not matter.  Accidents were treated as crimes. In Herat in 2000, multiple witnesses described  a woman in her early thirties being beaten in   a crowded bazaar for laughing while  speaking to another woman. She was   struck with a cable until she collapsed.  No one intervened.

 Under Taliban rules,   helping her would have meant being beaten too. After witnessing public beatings, many women  stayed inside their homes for days or weeks.   Some stopped leaving altogether. Kabul,  once full of women working, shopping,   and studying, became a city where women  largely disappeared from public life. The Taliban never tried to hide these punishments.  Beatings were meant to be seen.

 But cameras were   banned. Photography and video were considered  immoral. Anyone caught filming risked arrest,   severe beating, imprisonment,  or execution. Despite this,   some people recorded what was happening, like  the woman who recorded Zarmeena’s execution. The most important footage came from RAWA,  the Revolutionary Association of the Women   of Afghanistan. Founded in 1977, RAWA opposed  both Soviet occupation and Taliban rule.

 During   the late 1990s, its members secretly used  hidden cameras, often risking their lives. In 1999, RAWA released a video from Kabul showing  a woman being beaten in the street after lifting   her burqa to beg for food. Taliban officers  struck her repeatedly with wooden sticks as   bystanders stood frozen.

 The footage was smuggled  out through Pakistan and shown to journalists,   human rights groups, and the United  Nations. For many outside Afghanistan,   it was the first undeniable proof of what  daily Taliban rule looked like for women. Inside Afghanistan, nothing changed.  Beatings continued. Public violence   remained one of the Taliban’s  most effective tools of control. But on September 11, 2001 Everything changed. The  attacks in the United States shocked the world.  

The Taliban had been sheltering Osama bin Laden,  the leader of Al-Qaeda, who planned the attacks.   The Taliban refused to hand him over. This refusal  gave the U.S. and its allies a reason to act. On   October 7, 2001, American and coalition forces  began bombing Taliban targets in Afghanistan.

 The   strikes hit military bases, training camps, and  key cities. At the same time, Northern Alliance   fighters, a group opposed to the Taliban, advanced  on Kabul and other strongholds from the north. By November 13, 2001, the Taliban had fled Kabul.  Their government collapsed completely within a   few weeks. Roads, airports, and government offices  were abandoned.

 Many Taliban leaders and fighters   escaped to remote areas in the mountains or  crossed into Pakistan. The fall of Kabul marked   the first time in five years that women could  move freely in the capital. Women stepped outside   without hiding their faces. Girls returned  to schools that had been closed since 1996.   Offices, hospitals, and media organizations  reopened with female staff returning to work.

The world began to see what life under the  Taliban had really been like. Footage of   public punishments, secret beatings,  and executions emerged from hidden   archives. The clips revealed that from  1996 to 2001, Afghan women had lived   under constant threat of public punishment,  with little chance of protection or escape.  

International organizations like the United  Nations and Amnesty International began using   this footage to document Taliban  crimes against women and civilians. Even with these gains, it quickly became clear  that the Taliban were not gone forever. They   had retreated, but they were regrouping in  rural provinces such as Helmand, Kandahar,   and Uruzgan.

 Over the next few years, they  rebuilt their networks, trained fighters,   and quietly enforced strict rules  in areas outside government control. By 2010, they had expanded their control  over large rural areas. They were not   a government in Kabul anymore, but in many  villages and districts, they acted like one.   They set up courts, called “sharia  courts,” where they judged people   not through a real legal system, but by  their own strict interpretation of Islamic   law. Women were once again targets  of punishment in front of crowds.

One of the first moments that caught global  attention happened in September 2010 in Takhar   province, in northeastern Afghanistan. A  video began circulating quietly online.   It showed a woman being whipped by armed  men believed to be Taliban fighters. She   was accused of adultery.

 In the video, men  counted each lash, one by one, until she   reached 100 lashes. Her cries can be heard in the  recording, and other men stood around watching. This video spread on the internet and shocked  many people because it looked like a return   to the brutal punishments once common under  Taliban rule in the 1990s. Many human rights   groups later referenced this video as proof  that Taliban punishments were returning.

Five years later, in 2015, another event brought  global attention and horror. A 19-year-old woman   named Rukhshana was killed in a remote village  in Ghor province, deep in western Afghanistan. She had been forced into a marriage at a very  young age by her family, a practice common in   many parts of Afghanistan where girls are pushed  into arranged marriages.

 She first ran away with   a young man she hoped to marry, but local fighters  and family members brought her back. They forced   her into marriage with an older man she did not  choose. She ran away again with her fiancé, whose   name was Mohammad Gul, hoping to make a life of  her own.

 But local Taliban fighters and armed men   captured them, separated the couple, and handed  Rukhshana over to others who decided her fate. A video later emerged showing her being stoned  to death by a group of men in a hole in the   ground. Men threw stones at her body while  a small group of people watched. Her fiancé   was reportedly flogged, but he was not killed.

  Local officials described the killing as carried   out by “Taliban militants, local religious  leaders, and armed warlords,” meaning it   was not just one group acting alone but a mix  of armed power brokers controlling that area. The killing took place near Firozkoh, the capital  of Ghor province, in a village on the outskirts   where government authority was weak.

 Local  women’s officials condemned the killing, and many   activists said it was an extreme example of how  women were treated in Taliban-controlled regions.   Human rights groups later pointed out that public  stoning is not part of Afghan national law, yet in   remote areas where the government had little  influence, these punishments still happened. These specific events in 2010 and 2015 were only  glimpses of what was happening more widely.

 By   the end of the 2010s, these forms of punishment  spread quietly across many provinces. Reports   from local news outlets and human rights groups  showed public floggings for “moral crimes” like   leaving home without a male guardian, associating  with men, or running away from forced marriages. On August 15, 2021, the Taliban walked into  Kabul again, and took control of the city   without fighting.

 The Afghan government, which had  been backed by foreign forces for nearly 20 years,   quickly collapsed. President Ashraf Ghani left the  country and flew to the United Arab Emirates as   the Taliban entered the presidential palace. There  was almost no resistance from Afghan security   forces in the city, and life changed overnight  for millions of people. The foreign troops who had   been in Afghanistan since 2001 were leaving, and  the Taliban filled the vacuum almost instantly.

In the first weeks after the takeover, Taliban  leaders spoke to the world and promised something   very different from what people feared. They  said they would be more moderate than they were   in the 1990s. They claimed women would have  rights, that girls would be allowed to study,   and that the strictest punishments would not  return. These words gave a few families hope.

But that hope did not last long. By September 2021, just weeks after the takeover,  the Taliban changed course. They quietly shut   down secondary schools for girls, those above  grade six, across nearly all of Afghanistan.   This affected hundreds of thousands of teenage  girls who suddenly could not go to school.

 Only   a handful of provinces briefly reopened some  girls schools before the ban spread nationwide. These closures were not temporary pauses but  became ongoing bans that lasted into 2025,   leaving millions of girls out of education.  In many homes, education ended at age 12 or   younger because there were no classes for older  girls anymore.

 This made Afghanistan unique in   the world as the only country where girls  were barred from finishing basic schooling. By December 2021 and into 2022, the pressure  on women increased. Large numbers of female   workers were told not to come back to their  jobs. Universities began limiting women’s   participation by making classrooms segregated,  then by banning women from certain majors,   and finally by closing universities to  female students entirely by the end of 2022.

Once restrictions deepened, punishments  began appearing in public again, too. In November 2022, in Takhar province in northern  Afghanistan, Taliban courts publicly flogged 19   people, including women and men. Each person  received between 25 and 39 lashes for crimes   the Taliban claimed were “moral” violations, such  as alleged adultery or running away from home.

In December 2022, punishments continued. A woman  and a man in Farah province were publicly whipped   for alleged adultery. Locals recorded the  event, and the video spread quickly online,   showing the harsh reality for people accused  of breaking Taliban rules. This was not an   isolated event; throughout December,  many provinces saw large numbers of   men and women flogged in public for  alleged moral or criminal offenses.

In March 2023, in Logar province, Taliban courts   publicly flogged three women and nine men.  The punishments ranged from 20 to 39 lashes. Into January 2024, reports came out that at  least five women were publicly whipped in   Badakhshan province, often for what the Taliban  described as “moral crimes.

” In provinces like   Samangan and Sar‑e‑Pol, similar punishments  were recorded, with Taliban judicial bodies   using public lashings to enforce rules  about behavior, dress, and movement. By this time, these punishments were not rare.  Human rights groups and United Nations observers   documented hundreds of cases of public flogging,  including more than 300 people in mid‑2025 alone   across dozens of provinces.

 Some of these  punishments targeted women simply accused   of leaving home without a male guardian  or talking to men not related to them. This return of public punishment  showed the world that the Taliban’s   promises of moderation were not real. And this time, the world could see it clearly.