UN Report Blows Lid Off Rights Abuses In Afghanistan

A new report from the UN Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) released this week bears testimony to the erosion of basic human rights across the country since the Taliban took over in August last year, pointing out they bear responsibility for extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary arrests and detentions, and violations of fundamental freedoms. The ‘de facto’ authorities have limited dissent by cracking down on protests and curbing media freedoms, according to the report. The report condemns arbitrary arrests of journalists, protestors, and civil society activists. Women and girls have seen their rights to access education, the workplace and participate in public life, restricted. Not allowing girls to go to secondary school means that a generation of girls will not complete their full 12 years of basic education, UNAMA highlighted. While the report acknowledges steps taken by Taliban authorities to reduce violence, UNAMA still recorded 2,106 civilian casualties (700 killed and 1,406 wounded). Those causalities are mainly attributed to attacks by the terrorist group the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant – Khorasan Province, against ethnic and religious minority communities. UNAMA said it is concerned about the impunity with which members of the de facto authorities appear to have carried out human rights violations. According to the report, the worst affected were those linked to the former government and its security forces, with 160 extrajudicial killings, 178 arbitrary arrests and detentions and 56 instances of torture.