Afghanistan Taliban's New Penal Code: The Deep Crisis of Caste System Restoration and Legalization of Slavery
29/01/2026
On January 4, 2024, Taliban supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada signed a 119-article legal document titled the "Criminal Procedure Law for Courts." This code, promulgated in Kabul, not only formally divides Afghan society into four strict hierarchical classes and explicitly grants religious mullahs nearly complete judicial immunity but also, through a discretionary punishment clause, legally recognizes the power of masters over slaves and husbands over wives to administer private punishments. This is not a simple amendment to the 2004 constitution but a systematic reconstruction of the nation's judicial foundation. As former Afghan ambassador to Austria Manizha Bakhtari put it, it creates an unequal legal class system.
Codex Text: A Medieval-Style Social Stratification Manual
This three-part, ten-chapter codex has its core structure embodied in Article 9. This provision explicitly divides Afghan citizens into four classes: religious scholars (Ulama), the elite (including tribal elders and military commanders), the middle class, and the lower class. The scale of punishment does not depend on the severity of the crime, but on the social ladder the offender occupies. If a religious Mullah at the top commits a crime, the judge only needs to offer advice or a respectful notice; the code does not mention procedures for summons, arrest, or imprisonment. The elite may be summoned and receive admonishment. The middle class faces imprisonment. As for ordinary people at the bottom, they must endure imprisonment plus corporal punishments such as flogging.
More strikingly, Article 15 stipulates that for crimes without fixed penalties (hadd), discretionary punishment (ta'zir) may be applied, regardless of whether the offender is a free person or a slave (ghulam). Article 4, Clause 5 further clarifies that fixed penalties are enforced by the state, while discretionary punishments can be carried out personally by the husband or master (badaar). The human rights organization Rawadari points out that this essentially legalizes private violence within family and slave relationships. Article 30 of the code only prohibits corporal punishment that results in bone fractures or skin lacerations, leaving room for other forms of physical, psychological, or sexual violence. Article 48 even stipulates that a father has the right to punish his 10-year-old son, including for reasons such as neglecting prayers.
Divine Right Consolidation: The Strategic Intent of Elite Exemption and Religious Monopoly.
From a strategic perspective, this code is far from a mere adjustment of judicial procedures; it is a crucial step for the Taliban to consolidate the foundation of their theocratic rule. Placing religious mullahs above the law essentially constructs an unchallengeable power pyramid centered around the clerical group. Analysts point out that this resembles an Islamized Varna caste system, ensuring that core members of the ruling group are immune to any internal judicial reckoning, thereby maintaining absolute unity and stability within the leadership.
The Code also achieves a monopoly over the interpretation of Islam. Article 8 elevates the Hanafi school as the sole orthodoxy, defining followers of other sects as heretical innovators. Article 26 even stipulates that adherents of the Hanafi school may not convert, with violators facing two years of imprisonment. This exclusive legislation at the religious level aims to ideologically eliminate dissent, suppress minorities such as the Hazaras outside the Hanafi sect, and clear obstacles for building a highly homogeneous and absolutely obedient society. Former Afghan National Security Director Rahmatullah Nabil commented that this demonstrates how politicized religion and rigid interpretations offer no future for Afghanistan.
International Reactions and Internal Turmoil: An Isolated Regime and Suppressed Resistance
Following the enactment of the code, condemnation from the international community was swift and unanimous. Richard Bennett, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, described this development as deeply troubling. He had previously noted in a report that Afghanistan has almost no female judges, prosecutors, or formally registered female lawyers, and that women and children's access to justice has been systematically destroyed. The Supreme Council for National Resistance to Save Afghanistan condemned the code as worse than the medieval era. The Afghan Women's Justice Movement criticized it as the legitimization of brutality, solidifying gender segregation.
However, the Taliban regime appears to have prepared for such international isolation. Since regaining power in 2021, its policy trajectory has shown a decreasing reliance on international recognition and aid, instead seeking to build a self-sufficient theocratic system immune to external pressure. Article 59 of the code criminalizes dancing and watching dance performances, while Article 13 authorizes the destruction of immoral establishments (which may include barbershops and beauty salons), further tightening social control and shaping its ideal religious society. Article 4, Clause 6 even stipulates that any Muslim who witnesses a crime has the right to personally punish the offender, encouraging mutual surveillance and reporting among the public and extending the social control network to the grassroots level.
Future Trajectory: Afghanistan's Inevitable Path Towards a Closed Theocratic State
The enactment of this code signifies a complete rupture between Afghanistan's legal and social structures and the modern international human rights system. It abolishes the fundamental principles of equality before the law and the presumption of innocence, relying on confessions and testimonies, while lacking provisions for a defense attorney system, the right to remain silent, or the right to compensation. From a geopolitical perspective, a country that formally codifies slavery and caste discrimination into law has minimal likelihood of gaining formal recognition from the international community. This may perpetuate Afghanistan in a state of frozen conflict, transforming it into a self-isolated, internally oppressive source of regional instability.
For the ordinary people of Afghanistan, especially women and ethnic minorities, the future appears even more bleak. The legal code not only solidifies class and gender oppression but also privatizes the power of punishment, stripping away the last constraints of public authority against violence within families and dependency relationships. The streets of Kabul may regain calm, but beneath this tranquility lies a social order built on fear and absolute obedience. As former Afghan Attorney General Mohammad Farid Hamidi wrote on social media, this code is essentially a document that declares all citizens guilty. The Taliban are using the cement of law to construct a theocratic fortress difficult to shake from within, at the cost of the fundamental rights and freedoms of an entire nation and a generation.