A Taliban court said Saturday it publicly flogged a man and a woman in northern Jowzjan province after convicting them of “illicit relations.”

According to the Taliban’s judiciary, the pair were sentenced to prison terms ranging from six months to one year and 15 lashes each. The punishment was issued by the primary court in Aqcha district and carried out after being approved by the Taliban’s Supreme Court.

The Taliban have punished hundreds of people over the past four years on charges of “illicit relations” and have also resumed enforcing capital punishment. In several provinces, executions have been carried out in public in the presence of senior Taliban officials.

Human rights organisations have condemned public punishments as degrading and in violation of international human rights standards.

Observers say the Taliban are gradually reverting to policies from their 1990s rule, when public executions and floggings became defining images of their regime. Videos of women and men being executed in sports stadiums remain symbolic of that period.

In contrast, the Taliban have now banned filming or broadcasting of such punishments. Taliban forces routinely confiscate phones and cameras from people entering stadiums or public squares before punishments are carried out.