Amnesty calls on the UN Human Rights Council to once and for all address the “incessant abuses” of the Taliban

The NGO is already requesting an independent investigation mechanism between new complaints of persecution of intellectuals and attacks on civilians

March 6 (EUROPA PRESS) –

The NGO Amnesty International has asked the Member States of the United Nations on Monday to create an independent investigation mechanism to gather evidence, with a view to an international process, on the “incessant abuses” that the Afghan Taliban fundamentalist movement has committed in the country since his return to power in August 2021.

Amnesty recalls that mechanisms of this type already exist for countries such as Ethiopia, Iran and Burma, capable of investigating the humanitarian situation “for several years” thanks to their “resources to investigate, collect and preserve evidence of abuses and violations of Human Rights” .

In its new report, published this Monday, Amnesty presents the results of its latest investigations into a recent wave of arrests of human rights activists, Taliban attacks on the population during fighting against the armed opposition to fundamentalists in the province of Panjshir (the country that is not under complete control of the movement) and the latest events regarding its policy of oppression of minorities, including three cases of “collective homicide” in as many provinces against the Hazara minority that could constitute war crimes .

Detained activists include Women’s Rights Defender Narges Sadat; teacher and women’s education activist Ismail Mashal; activist Fardin Fedayee, a civil society activist; writer and activist Zekria Asoli; the Afghan-French journalist Mortaza Behboudi or fellow reporter Muhamad Yar Majroh. Of them, only Mashal has been released.

“The human rights situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating rapidly, and the incessant abuses by the Taliban continue on a daily basis,” said Agnès Callamard, Secretary General of Amnesty International, who has insisted on the fundamental nature of a “mission of investigation focused on the collection and preservation of evidence to ensure that justice is served”.

VERIFIED EVIDENCE OF CRIMES IN PANJSHIR

Since the return of the Taliban to power, Panjshir province has been the scene of open conflict between the fundamentalists and the National Resistance Front in a region in the north-east of the country where media access is virtually impossible.

However, Amnesty International’s Evidence Lab has managed to confirm the authenticity of photos and videos of at least eight incidents posted on social media between May and August 2022.

In the images verified by the NGO appear “large groups of men” detained “arbitrarily and without prior trial” in the hands of the Taliban. In total, these videos show at least 87 people at various points in the detention process, most with their hands tied. In one video, a Taliban fighter says: “If it were up to me, I would kill them right here.”

Witnesses of a specific incident in the town of Dan i Rivat report that the men were summoned in an announcement through the loudspeakers of a mosque. Once assembled, the Taliban tied their hands with scarves and proceeded to beat them in the face with gun butts.

“They detained men who did not even have a knife, because the Taliban had seized their weapons a month earlier,” the witnesses recall, on condition of anonymity.

REPRESSION

Amnesty also denounces the habitual repression exerted by the Taliban on the especially vulnerable population of the country. In addition to the women and girls, there is the particular case of the Hazara minority, the subject of an investigation into three “collective homicides” in the provinces of Ghazni, Ghor and Daykundi perpetrated by unknown persons who have acted with complete impunity since the fundamentalists “did not investigations have been conducted in none of the three cases.”

For the rest, the Taliban continue with their violations of the rights of women and girls to education, work and free movement; they have decimated the protection and support system for those fleeing gender violence in the family; they have detained women and girls for minor infractions of discriminatory rules; and have contributed to the increase in the number of child, early and forced marriages in Afghanistan.

Amnesty recalls that the Taliban have arbitrarily detained prominent human rights defenders such as Zarifa Yaqubi, Farhat Popalzai and Humaira Yusuf, banned women’s access to secondary and higher education and ordered local and foreign NGOs to dispense with its female staff until further notice.

“The international community must act without delay to establish an international investigative and evidence preservation mechanism to ensure that independent investigations and prosecutions can take place,” Callamard said.

“The current accountability vacuum allows serious human rights abuses and violations in Afghanistan to continue unstoppable,” he adds, “and must be closed urgently.”