The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) announced that extrajudicial killings of individuals affiliated with the former government are ongoing. UNAMA said that the Taliban arrests people allegedly affiliated with resistance forces in Kabul and Panjshir.
The Taliban has not responded to the new report of UNAMA yet.
According to the UNAMA report, the Taliban continues to physically punish these people and repress the voices of opposition against the group.
In the new report of the UN agency which has covered the period from February to April 2023, the arrest of critics of the Taliban including Parisa Mubarez and her brother on February 11 in Taloqan city; four women who participated in a protest on March 26 in Kabul; education activist Matiullah Wesa on March 2; university professor Ismail Mashal on March 4; civil activist Narges Sadat on February 11, and Zakaria Osuli on January 31 have been mentioned as instances of the Taliban’s crackdown on voices that criticise the group’s policies and practices in Afghanistan.
Some of these arrested individuals have been released from Taliban detention over the past few weeks.
According to the UNAMA report, the Taliban used excessive force and violence during their search operations in Kabul between February and April 2023. The report also confirmed severe restrictions by the Taliban on Afghan media operations.
The UNAMA report has too recorded new orders by the Taliban’s Ministry of Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice and said that on February 14, the Taliban banned the celebration of Valentine’s Day in Kabul and arrested owners of a café in the capital city on the same day.
UNAMA also stressed that the Taliban imposed a ban on the celebration of Nowruz, the Shamsi new year, and said that the Taliban agents established temporary checkpoints across the city to identify those who celebrated Nowruz.
On March 20, a decree attributed to Hibatullah Akhundzadeh, the leader of the Taliban, was published, which changed the name and mission of the Prosecutor General's Office to "General Directorate for Monitoring and Prosecuting Judgments and Orders". UNAMA said in its report that the order strongly confirms that prosecutors are no longer part of the criminal investigation process.
However, UNAMA has announced in its new report that during the past three months, the office has provided training on human rights and international humanitarian laws to 483 members of the Taliban in Wardak, Kapisa, Balkh, Bamiyan, Kandahar, Parwan, Samangan, Sar-i-pol, Laghman, Jawzjan, Farah, Kunar and Khost provinces. According to UNAMA, these training sessions have been provided to the Taliban members after the group has imposed a ban on the right to education and work of Afghan women.
