Taliban, Sharia and human rights

Next August, the Taliban will have completed three years in power following the sudden and dramatic American withdrawal on August 15, 2021, allowing the Taliban to take control of power over all parts of Afghanistan within hours.

The Taliban wants Afghanistan to be a country with its own standards, yet at the same time it wants to be included in the international system! But it discovers day after day that it is becoming more distant from the world, as if it were a country from another planet, especially since the countries of the world refuse to recognize it or establish official relations with it. Therefore, the Taliban is searching for possible solutions, but they seem distant, especially on the political and economic levels.

In the field of human rights, the Taliban is also under international scrutiny, especially since many of its decisions since assuming power until today contradict international human rights conventions and foundations. Despite the many criticisms directed at it, it adheres to its decisions, to the extent that Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid rejected last April the US State Department report that criticized the “deteriorating” human rights situation in Afghanistan. Mujahid said that the United States’ criticism of his country’s record in the field of human rights is baseless, pointing out that Western definitions of rights do not apply to Afghanistan. He stressed the Taliban’s commitment to “implementing Islamic Sharia law.”

What most Afghan people see is that the Taliban’s practices stem from its own ideology and not from the teachings of Islamic law to which the Afghan people comply, especially with regard to girls’ education and the Taliban’s decision to deny women and girls access to secondary and higher education. According to Volker Türk, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, “The shocking level of oppression of Afghan women and girls is immeasurably cruel. Afghanistan has set a devastating precedent as the only country in the world where women and girls are denied access to secondary and higher education.”

The human rights situation in Afghanistan in general is difficult. Over the past three years, there has been a systematic decline in the laws and institutions that previously provided some protection for human rights. The constitution has been suspended, and today laws are issued by decrees rather than through consultative processes.

Corporal punishments are continuing and increasing, and public executions have become a feature of the Taliban’s rule, in addition to the suppression of freedoms and restrictions on media institutions, many of which have been forced to stop working.

Perhaps the Taliban must now be able to extrapolate reality and understand the requirements of the times, which do not conflict with Sharia, but rather are supported by Sharia, and which Islamic countries work by, most notably regarding the education of women and respect for their rights and humanity.