On Friday, the Taliban publicly executed four men across Herat, Ghor, and Logar. In any functioning justice system, such acts would be met with due process, transparency, and accountability. But in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, justice is not delivered; it is displayed. These public executions are a deliberate show of dominance, a return to medieval terror under the thin veil of religious jurisprudence.
\nThis is not a one-off. According to UN reports, hundreds of people have faced public lashings and executions since the Taliban\u2019s takeover in 2021. Women have been erased from society. The media has been muzzled. Civil liberties, crushed. Yet, amid these violations, the international community has chosen the path of silence. Condemnations, when they come, are sterile, bureaucratic, and devoid of action. No sanctions with teeth. No diplomatic pressure that holds the regime accountable. Just passive hand-wringing while Afghanistan sinks deeper into a humanitarian and moral abyss.
\nAnd who bears the burden of this failure? Pakistan.
\nWe are the ones left to manage the fallout, hosting millions of Afghan refugees, combating cross-border militancy, and struggling to shield our youth from the ideological contagion seeping through a destabilised frontier. While Western powers distance themselves, citing engagement fatigue, Pakistan is expected to mop up the mess of a war we didn\u2019t start and a peace we weren\u2019t invited to shape.
\nLet\u2019s be clear: the Taliban\u2019s brutality isn\u2019t just an Afghan problem but a regional threat. A destabilised Afghanistan means a volatile Pakistan. It means more pressure on our economy, our security forces, and our already strained social fabric. Yet, we\u2019re handed sermons on \u201crestraint\u201d and \u201cconstructive dialogue\u201d while the global order plays politics with Afghan lives.
\nIt\u2019s time we stop waiting for the international community to grow a conscience. Pakistan must take a principled stand. We must demand human rights guarantees as a condition for any regional cooperation. We must amplify Afghan voices, especially women and civil society leaders, who are risking everything to resist this oppression. And we must call out the hypocrisy of global powers that fuelled this crisis only to walk away when it mattered most. Because if we don\u2019t speak now, we become complicit. And Pakistan has always stood taller than that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Friday, the Taliban publicly executed four men across Herat, Ghor, and Logar. In any functioning justice system, such acts would be met with due process, transparency, and accountability. But in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, justice is not delivered; it is displayed. These public executions are a deliberate show of dominance, a return to medieval terror under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-472152","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-editorial"},"yoast_head":"\n