Amnesty International Calls For Investigation Into Human Rights Violations Under Taliban

In his recorded speech to the United Nations Human Rights Council, Blinken described the Taliban's order to ban girls from entering secondary schools and universities as part of the Taliban-controlled severe repression of women and girls in Afghanistan.

The US Secretary of State referred to the Taliban's order to ban women's work in non-governmental organisations and said that 29 million people depend on humanitarian aid for their survival in Afghanistan.

The Taliban imposed severe restrictions on girls and women after they have taken control of Afghanistan in August 2021. According to these Taliban orders, girls do not have the right to education in schools or universities.

In an interview with the Special Inspector General for Reconstruction of Afghanistan (SIGAR), Karzai said that Ashraf Ghani refused to pay attention to big strategic issues that Afghanistan faced.

Criticising the performance of the former president, he said, "In the last four years, 45,000 security forces had been martyred. Imagine these numbers. I mean, these are not just simple numbers, these are huge numbers. How can you relate to that?”

Karzai’s remarks on the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban have been included in a SIGAR report released on February 28.

The report stated that along with corruption and dependence on the US military, ethnocentric appointments by Ashraf Ghani had reduced the morale and capabilities of the former security forces of Afghanistan.

According to SIGAR, while corruption had weakened the Afghan army, there was no political will to combat it.

McCaul also urged the US administration to impose wider visa restriction sanctions against Taliban officials.

In his letter, McCaul stressed that under the Taliban’s rule, Afghan women and girls have been forced to hide away inside their homes, have been prevented from working, left out of humanitarian aid deliveries, barred from seeking healthcare without a male escort, banned from receiving an education above the 6th grade, tortured, forced to marry, and blocked from leaving the country.

He also said that women’s rights defenders in Afghanistan are persecuted, jailed, and murdered by the Taliban.

The Taliban leader meets the two powerful ministers while there have been reports of differences among the group’s leadership regarding recent restrictions against Afghan women.

This is the first meeting of senior Taliban officials with the leader of the group after the recent public differences among the Taliban leadership.

The Taliban spokesperson has not given details of the meeting and talking points of the Taliban leaders and the two ministers.

The Taliban spokesperson, however, has said that the scholars present during the meeting expressed their views about the problems in the government to the Taliban leader.

The Taliban leader has told the meeting that they have to obey Sharia and serve the Islamic system.

The Taliban spokesperson has stressed that these religious scholars have promised to carry out the orders of the Taliban leader.

Recently, Taliban defense minister, Mullah Yaqoob and interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, have criticised the Taliban leadership in an unprecedented manner.

In the latest case last week, Mullah Yaqoob told the Taliban members in Kabul that they should not obey anyone's orders blindly.

The unfulfilled promises include unsatisfactory steps regarding terrorist groups in Afghanistan as Taliban sheltered then-al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri; Taliban have also not engaged in political dialogue leading to a negotiated settlement and that the Doha Agreement envisioned a peaceful settlement, not a takeover on the part of the Taliban.

The Doha Agreement had been signed on February 29, 2020, between Zalmay Khalilzad, the former US representative for Afghanistan peace affairs, and Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the current Deputy Prime Minister of the Taliban, in Qatar.

Price added that despite no clear plan for the withdrawal they were committed to it because of an imposing deadline.

He went on to call on the Taliban to fulfil the commitments that they made to not only the United States in the context of this document but, to their own people.

He also said that the US and the world are hoping for the Taliban to revise their decision regarding girls’ education. “We expect Afghanistan’s schools to reopen. We stand with the Afghan people in calling on the Taliban to allow women and girls to have access to education and to participate fully in society. The Taliban’s decision to close secondary schools to girls last March violated again the very promises the Taliban made to their own people. It’s had a significant impact in turn on our engagement with Taliban representatives,” he added.

Price emphasised that education is an internationally recognised human right and is essential to Afghanistan’s growth, to its economic stability, to its potential for prosperity as well.

He said that the US is focused on channelling the humanitarian support, channelling the macroeconomic stability and macroeconomic support that they can provide to Afghanistan in ways that in essence bypass the Taliban.