Kabul: The Taliban government of Afghanistan released 2,463 prisoners ahead of EID, the Supreme Court said on Saturday.
The court said in X that “2,463 prisoners who were eligible for amnesty were released, while another 3,152 received reductions in sentences” according to a decree of Supreme Leader Taliban.
While the exact number of prisoners in the possession of several security agencies in Afghanistan is not clear, the UN warned about a growing penitentiary population in the country.
A spokesman for the prison administration office said that between 11,000 and 12,000 convicted prisoners were in the custody of the authority. Around the same number they are in detention waiting for judgment, sentence or appeal, he added.
The UN mission to Afghanistan warned of high volumes of arrests and long sentences in jail time that exert “unsustainable pressure on prison facilities.”
Posted in Dawn, March 30, 2025
