The United Nations Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) on July 20 released a report holding the ruling Taliban regime responsible for extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary arrests, and inhumane punishments in the first 10 months since they seized power. In total, UNAMA found that Taliban forces engaged in 239 extrajudicial killings, 313 arbitrary arrests and detentions, 46 cases of incommunicado detention, and 73 instances of torture. Most of the incidents targeted former Afghan National Defense & Security Forces (ANDSF) soldiers, officials from the previous government, ISIL-KP members, or National Resistance Front fighters. UNAMA also identified an additional 217 instances of degrading punishments and 118 uses of excessive force against civilians. Finally, Taliban forces also engaged in at least 163 rights violations targeting journalists and 64 targeting human rights defenders.
UNAMA additionally documented an additional 2,106 civilian casualties (700 killed, 1406 wounded), most of which were caused by improvised explosive device attacks attributed to ISIL-KP and unexploded ordnances from the multitude of past conflicts in the country. UNAMA also found that of six journalists who were killed during the last ten months at least five of them were killed by self-identified ISIL-KP members.
The report also focused on the rights of women and girls, and the restriction of fundamental freedoms. It states that the decision not to allow girls to return to secondary school means that a generation of girls will not complete their full 12 years of basic education. At the same time, access to justice for victims of gender-based violence has been limited by the dissolution of dedicated reporting pathways, justice mechanisms and shelters.
Markus Potzel, acting UN special representative for Afghanistan, called on the Taliban to rein in their forces and adhere to international law:
As reflected by the United Nations Security Council in the extension of UNAMA’s mandate, Afghanistan as a state remains party to a number of instruments concerning human rights and fundamental freedoms. With this in mind, I urge the de facto authorities to do their utmost to address the concerns outlined in our report and meet their international obligations to protect and promote the human rights of all Afghans.
From Jurist, July 20. Used with permission.
Notes: ISIL-KP refers to the “Islamic State in Iraq & the Levant—Khorasan Province,” also rendered ISIS-K or ISKP. The National Resistance Front is a rebel group in the Panjshir Valley, mostly made up of soldiers and political figures from the old regime. Since the Taliban seizure of power last August, rights for women have been dramatically rolled back in Afghanistan.
Photo: VOA via Jurist
Afghanistan: Taliban’s ‘suffocating crackdown’
In the year since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, women and girls have faced systemic and worsening repression, according to a new report from Amnesty International. It details daily rights violations—restrictions on schooling, work, and movement—as well as the detention and torture both of protesters and those who violate the new restrictions. Under Taliban rule, the report says, rates of forced child marriage are “surging.”
Al-Qaeda leader Zawahiri reported killed in Kabul drone strike
President Joe Biden announced that the leader of al-Qaeda, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was killed in a CIA drone strike on a house in the Afghan capital of Kabul on July 31. Family members were preent in the house, but the US said they were unharmed and only Zawahiri lost his life. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that by sheltering Zawahiri, the Taliban had "grossly violated" the peace agreement that led to the US withdrawal from Afghanistan last year. The Taliban, in turn, described the US operation as a clear violation of international principles. (BBC News)
Anti-US protests in Afghanistan
Hundreds of Afghans carried anti-American banners on Aug. 5 to protest the US drone strike that Washington says killed Ayman al-Zawahiri. The protests were launched a day after the Taliban said their government had no information about Zawahiri “entering and living” in Kabul and warned the United States to never repeat an attack on Afghan soil. Photos shared on social media showed protesters in at least seven Afghan provinces carrying banners reading “Down with USA,” “Joe Biden, stop lying” and “America is a liar.” (Reuters)
Taliban break up protest by Afghan women
Taliban fighters dispersed dozens of women protesters in Kabul, almost a year after the militant group seized power. About 40 women marched through the Afghan capital demanding rights, before the Taliban broke it up by firing into the air. The protesters carried a banner reading “August 15 is a black day”—a reference to the day the Taliban captured Kabul in 2021. (BBC News)
Suicide attack on Kabul mosque
A suicide bombing at the Siddiquiya (Siddiqi) mosque in Kabul during evening prayers on Aug. 17 killed at least 10 people, including a prominent cleric, Mullah Amir Mohammad Kabuli. Some 30 were wounded, including several children. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but it comes a week after a prominent pro-Taliban cleric, Rahimullah Haqqani, was killed in a Kabul suicide blast that was claimed by ISIS. (CBS, BBC News)
Deadly Kabul blast targets Hazaras
A suicide bomb attack on an education center in a Hazara neighborhood of Kabul killed at least 25 people, most believed to be young women. Students were taking a university entrance exam when the blast took place. (CNN)
Taliban ban women from Kabul parks
The Taliban have banned women from visiting all parks in Kabul, excluding them still further from public life in Afghanistan. A spokesman for the Vice and Virtue Ministry said those managing parks in the capital had been told not to allow women in. The group claims Islamic laws were not being followed at parks. (BBC News)
Amnesty: Taliban must release women’s rights activists
Amnesty International is calling for the immediate release of prominent Afghan women’s rights defenders Zarifa Yaqoobi, Farhat Popalzai, Humaira Yusuf and their colleagues. The women were detained Nov 4, when the Taliban detained raided a press conference they were holding in Kabul to announce the formation of an “Afghan Women Movement for Equality,” (Jurist)
Taliban resume public floggings
Taliban supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada has ordered judges to fully enforce provisions of sharia law that include public executions, stonings, floggings and the amputation of limbs. On Nov, 23, the Taliban organized a public flogging of nine men and three women accused of theft and adultery, at a sports stadium in Logar province. Regional authorities sent out invitations for execution of the sentence, and several hundred people gathered to witness the spectacle. (The Guardian, TVP World)
Women banned from universities in Afghanistan
Women are banned from all private and public universities in Afghanistan with immediate effect and until further notice, the Taliban’s Ministry of Higher Education announced Dec. 20, the latest edict cracking down on their rights and freedoms. (AP)
Passive resistance as Taliban bar women from universities
On Dec. 21 Taliban enforcers physically closed the gates of all the universities and forced girls to leave the premises with lashes and sticks. But university professors have started a movement called “All or No One,” and are submitting their resignation letters in growing numbers. (Jurist)
Taliban use water cannon on women opposing university ban
Taliban enforcers used a water cannon to disperse a group of women protesting the ban on female students attending university. Video on social media shows women taking cover in the city of Herat to escape a stream of water. Dozens of women holding a protest march could be heard shouting slogans including “Education is our right.” (BBC News)
Taliban raid ISIS hideouts in Afghanistan
Taliban officials said eight people were killed and seven arrested in raids on ISIS hideouts of in Afghanistan. The raids came three weeks after five Chinese nationals were wounded in an attack on a hotel in central Kabul. (Al Arabiya)
Girls’ education activist arrested by Taliban
A prominent Afghan campaigner for female education has been arrested by the Taliban, even as teenage girls and women remain barred from classrooms.
Matiullah Wesa, 30, had often received threats—he has spent years travelling across Afghanistan trying to improve access to education for all children.
The Taliban did not say why he is in custody. His home was also raided.
His arrest follows the detention of a number of other activists who have been campaigning for women’s education.
In February Prof Ismail Mashal, an outspoken critic of the Taliban government’s ban on education for women, was arrested in Kabul while handing out free books. He was freed on 5 March but has not spoken out since then.
Wesa is one of the most prominent education activists in Afghanistan and, via his charity PenPath, has been campaigning for girls’ right to study since the Taliban barred female education in 2021. His last tweet—on March 27, the day of his arrest—was a photo of women volunteers for PenPath “asking for the Islamic rights to education for their daughters.” (BBC News)
Women’s radio station in Afghanistan ordered closed
A woman-run radio station in Afghanistan’s Badakhshan province has been shut down for playing music during the holy month of Ramadan, a Taliban official said. Sadai Banowan, which means “women’s voice” in Dari, is Afghanistan’s only female-run station and started 10 years ago. It has eight staff, six of them female. Local Taliban authorities said the station had violated the “laws and regulations of the Islamic emirate” several times by broadcasting songs and music during Ramadan. Station head Najia Sorosh denied there was any violation, saying” “We have not broadcast any kind of music.” (The Guardian)
UN condemns Taliban use of corporal punishment
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Detained education advocate released by Taliban
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