Amnesty International in a new briefing said that the Taliban have mounted a sustained attack on human rights ever since seizing control of Afghanistan a year ago.
The briefing, The Rule of Taliban: A Year of Violence, Impunity and False Promises, documents gross human rights violations under a year of Taliban rule. The human rights organisation stated that the Taliban has been persecuting minority groups, violently clamping down on peaceful protests, suppressing women’s rights and using extrajudicial executions and disappearances to spread fear among Afghans.
The briefing also highlights the broken promises made by the Taliban who had initially promised to uphold women’s rights and even provide amnesty to former government officials. However, the rights group stated that the Taliban has been torturing civilians, undertaking revenge killings and forced evictions of opponents of the group.
“A year ago, the Taliban made public commitments to protect and promote human rights. Yet the speed with which they are dismantling 20 years of human rights gains is staggering. Any hopes of change have quickly evaporated as the Taliban seek to govern through violent repression with full impunity,” said Yamini Mishra, Amnesty International’s South Asia Regional Director.
Mishra added that arbitrary detentions, torture, disappearances, summary executions are daily routine and women and girls, without rights, are facing a bleak future, deprived of education. The briefing elucidated that the Taliban have subjected women to increasing violence since they took power. Sometimes as a way of punishing their family members. Dozens of women have been arrested and tortured for holding peaceful protests demanding their rights, amid mounting restrictions that have stripped away their freedoms, it stated.
Amnesty International called on the Taliban to immediately stop committing gross human rights violations and crimes under international law. It also asked the group to urgently restore, protect and promote the rights of Afghan people.