GENEVA - UN experts* today called on the international community to reject the Taliban's violent and authoritarian rule and resist any moves towards normalising the de facto authorities' regime, four years after the group seized power in Afghanistan.
"For four years the people of Afghanistan, especially women and girls, have endured a relentless and escalating assault on their fundamental rights and freedoms," the experts said. "Operating without legitimacy, the Taliban enforces an institutionalised system of gender oppression, crushes dissent, exacts reprisals, and muzzles independent media while showing outright contempt for human rights, equality and non-discrimination."
In the past year, the Taliban has continued to impose so-called laws, edicts, and decrees while maintaining previous draconian restrictions on women's and girls' rights to education, freedom of movement, work, health, freedoms of expression and of association, and participation in cultural and public life.
"The Taliban's institutionalised system of gender discrimination and oppression is so severe that it amounts to the crime against humanity of persecution on grounds of gender," the experts said, welcoming the recent arrest warrants for two senior Taliban leaders issued by the International Criminal Court. "We support all efforts to hold those responsible to account."
The experts also highlighted concerns about other, wide-ranging human rights violations, including a disturbing surge in public executions and corporal punishments, arbitrary arrest and detentions, extrajudicial executions, acts tantamount to enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment in detention, the obliteration of civic space and crackdown on human rights defenders, restrictions on the rights to freedom of religion or belief, increasing numbers of internally displaced persons, the targeting of ethnic and religious minorities, discrimination against LGBTQ+ persons, and violations committed on national security and counter-terrorism grounds.
"The situation in Afghanistan is dire but it must not be regarded as a lost cause. The international community must resist the narrative that the current situation under Taliban rule is inevitable or irreversible. Another future is possible," they said.
The experts said that countering the Taliban's increasing repression requires an "all-tools" approach. This approach should combine principled international advocacy and pressure with international accountability, including the establishment of an additional, complementary investigation mechanism with a comprehensive mandate. It should also include the codification of the crime of gender apartheid, strengthened support for civil society-especially women-led organisations-and increased funding for humanitarian assistance and realisation of the Sustainable Development Goals.
Greater support and protection for Afghan refugees, internally displaced persons, and those in exile is also essential. "This protection is particularly urgent as countries such as the Islamic Republic of Iran and Pakistan continue to return large numbers of Afghans, directly exposing them to the very persecution from which they fled," the experts said.
"The people of Afghanistan, especially women and girls of all ages, must be actively involved in efforts to improve the situation in the country," they said.
"We firmly believe that change in Afghanistan is best led by its people. But they cannot do it alone. International support - principled, focused, sustained, and rooted in solidarity - is essential," the experts said. "Every day without action strengthens the Taliban's oppressive grip. Standing side by side with the people of Afghanistan is both a moral imperative and a human rights responsibility. It is in the interest not only of the Afghan people, but the global community."
