Some had been released as of February, but more than a dozen had been killed and around 100 remained in detention. The militia finances many of its activities through narcotics trafficking. Proceedings are brief, defendants lack the right to legal counsel, due process safeguards are absent, and there is no right of appeal. In a society where families of murder victims have the option of carrying out court-imposed death sentences or granting clemency, victims relatives have killed convicted murderers on several occasions. Authorities have also bulldozed alleged sodomizers under walls, stoned adulterers to death, and amputated the hands of thieves.
Prison conditions are inhumane.
The Taliban have arbitrarily detained and tortured thousands of men from ethnic minority groups, often civilians rounded up during military operations. Many have been killed or have disappeared. The Taliban s social code and its interpretation of the Sharia have created severe hardship for women. Religious police from the Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice regularly flogged, beat, and otherwise punished women in detention centers and public places for violating Taliban dress codes, which include wearing the burqa, a one-piece garment covering the entire body. After visiting Afghanistan in 1999, the UN Special Rapporteur for Violence Against Women called the religious department the most misogynist entity in the world.