According to a UN report released Tuesday, there have been more than 200 extrajudicial killings of former Afghan government officials and security forces since the Taliban took control of the country two years ago.
The groups most targeted by the Taliban have been former members of the country’s military, police and intelligence services, according to the United Nations Assistance Mission (UNAMA) in Afghanistan.
UNAMA documented at least 800 human rights violations against former Afghan government and security force officials between August 15, 2021, when the Taliban seized power, and the end of June 2023.
The Taliban rampaged through Afghanistan as US and NATO troops were in the final weeks of their withdrawal from the country after two decades of war.
US-backed and trained Afghan forces crumbled before the advancing Taliban and former Afghan President Ashraf Ghani fled the country.
“People were detained by the country’s de facto (Taliban) security forces, often briefly, before being killed. Some were taken to detention centers and killed while in custody, others were taken to unknown locations and killed, their bodies were abandoned or handed over to their relatives,” the UN report says.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, said in a press release that this UN report “paints a worrying picture of the treatment of people linked to the former government and security forces.”
“In addition, since they were assured that they would not be attacked, it is a betrayal of the trust of the people,” Turk said.
Turk urged Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers – the country’s “de facto authorities” – to fulfill their “obligations under international human rights law by preventing further violations and holding the perpetrators accountable” for the crimes.
Since taking power in Afghanistan, the Taliban (who ruled Afghanistan at another point in the 1990s) have faced no significant opposition and have avoided internal divisions.
The Afghan Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) rejected the report, stressing that it was not aware of any cases of human rights violations by Taliban-linked officials or officials.
“Killings without trial, arbitrary arrests, arrests, torture and other acts against human rights committed by workers of the security institutions of the Islamic Emirate against former government officials and security forces have not been reported,” the ministry said in a statement. Afghan Foreign Affairs.
The report states that former Afghan soldiers are most at risk of human rights violations, followed by police and intelligence workers. Rapes were recorded in all 34 provinces, with the highest number in Kabul, Kandahar and Balkh provinces.
Most of the violations occurred in the four months after the Taliban takeover, and UNAMA recorded nearly half of all extrajudicial killings of former Afghan government and security force officials during this period. However, rights violations continued even after that, with 70 extrajudicial killings recorded in 2022, the report adds.
UNAMA has registered at least 14 cases of enforced disappearance of former government officials and members of the Afghan security forces. The UN documented more than 424 arbitrary detentions, including former government officials and members of the Afghan security forces, while the report documented more than 144 cases of torture and ill-treatment, including beatings with pipes and cables, verbal threats and other abuses. .
Despite initial promises by a moderate administration, the Taliban imposed strict rules across the country, banning girls’ education after the sixth grade and barring Afghan women from participating in public life, including working for non-governmental organizations. and the UN.
Source: TSF
