Afghanistan: No rights for human anymore under Taliban’s rule

For the Taliban movement, human rights and freedoms are alienable. Since the de facto authority of the Taliban took over power in mid-August 2021 following the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan, human rights have been abolished from the lives of about 39.8 million people, especially women and girls, by committing tremendous violations of extrajudicial killings, arrests, restriction of movement, deprivation of education, etc. 

In the period between August 15, 2021 and June 15, 2022, a total of 2,106 civilian casualties have been reported, including 7oo civilians killed and 1,406 injured, mostly in attacks attributed to the terrorist group ISIS-Khorasan Province, according to a report issued by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) on July 20.

As for the authority of the Taliban during the abovementioned period, it carried out 77 extrajudicial killings (59 killings against individuals accused of affiliation with ISIS and 19 against individuals affiliated with the National Resistance Front), the report said.

The movement also conducted dozens of arbitrary arrests and detentions, torture and ill-treatment, the report added.

Human rights violations also affected a total of 173 journalists and media workers, including 163 violations attributed to the movement, which also committed 64 violations against human rights defenders.

The return of old hardline and restrictive rulings of the Taliban was noticed when the militant group, a few weeks after taking power, ordered hairdressers in Kabul and Helmand not to shave or trim men’s beards in order to “abide by the Islamic Sharia (law).”

In addition, the Taliban believes that online mobile sharing applications like TikTok and online games like PUBGE are tools inciting immorality, so on April 22, it ordered a ban on them.

In May, the Taliban dissolved the Human Rights Commission, saying that there are not enough funds to include it in their budget due to the economic situation.

Oppressed women

Those who suffer the most under the Taliban’s rule are women and girls. Despite the militant movement’s early promises of respecting women's rights when they seized power, women and girls were deprived of rights to education. On March 23, the Taliban banned high school girls from going to educational facilities nationwide, believing that it contradicts the Sharia law they are calling for. However, Islam calls upon every individual to learn and read, as the first Quranic verse revealed to Muslims is “Read”.

Banning 1.2 million girls, according to the UN data, from going to school has been faced with criticism domestically and internationally. 

In addition to this, a few days after the Taliban entered Kabul and announced their rule, they asked female workers to stay home “temporarily”. The International Labor Organization (ILO) said in January 2022 that the women’s employment level declined 16 percent in the third quarter of 2021, stressing that “women are hard hit” since the Taliban takeover.

It wasn't just that, the militant government’s Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue, previously Ministry of Women, issued a decision on May 19 ordering women to wear the niqab (a veil covering the whole face except the eyes, although Islam does not impose the niqab as a duty on women), and in case women refused to comply with the movement’s decision, their husbands or male guardian may be imprisoned for three years.

A few weeks later, it ordered TV female presenters to wear the niqab on screen. 

Fawzia Koofi, the former deputy speaker of the Afghan Parliament, said in a speech at the UN Human Rights Council on July 1 that one or two Afghan women and girls commit suicide per day “for the lack of opportunity, for the mental health, for the pressure they receive.”

“The fact that girls as young as nine years old are being sold, not only because of economic pressure but because of the fact that there is no hope for them, for their family, it is not normal,” she added.

In protest against the Taliban’s strict decision against women in their rights to education and work, dozens of women recently demonstrated outside the Ministry of Education in Kabul. However, the protest was dispersed by the Taliban militants when they opened fire into the air.

“It is beyond time for all Afghans to be able to live in peace and rebuild their lives after 20 years of armed conflict. Our monitoring reveals that despite the improved security situation since 15 August, the people of Afghanistan, in particular women and girls, are deprived of the full enjoyment of their human rights,” said Markus Potzel, Acting Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, on July 20.

How does Taliban see ‘human rights’?

“There are two types of human rights - one that non-Muslims have devised for themselves and stand by them. And the rights set by almighty Allah for humanity,” Taliban Prime Minister Hasan Akhund was quoted as saying by Voice of America (VoA) on July 9, when he was giving a speech to a gathering on the occasion of Eid Al-Adha.

All political Islam groups like the Taliban, al-Qaeda, ISIS, the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafists have terms and definitions that are different from what people use when it comes to human rights and freedoms, said Tarek Abu El Saad, an expert in the affairs of the Islamist movements.

Those groups, who adopt behavioral extremism like the Salafists or armed societal extremism like the Taliban and al-Qaeda, see that freedom is to live only, he added in comments to Jusoor Post.

“Regarding women’s rights, the Taliban and other Islamic groups are of the belief that women have only certain duties of marriage, childbearing, and sating men’s lust,” he said.

The Taliban sees that women have no other rights, and even if education was allowed, it would be conditioned by certain matters, Abu El Saad continued, noting that this hardline group believes that women should not go out to work.

“They see that working is a matter of bad manners for women because it [work] pushes women to vice, marital infidelity, and so on. The Taliban did so. The old version of Taliban did so, and the new Taliban did so. The difference is that the degree of violence (currently) has decreased to some extent; with women, the treatment has become less harsh,” he continued.

Islamic law in the concept of Islamic groups is changeable, Abu El Saad said, elaborating that if those groups have moments of weakness, they would try to say that the Sharia accepts women and accepts their education, but when it comes to application, they break their promises.

“These groups do not abide by their promises when it comes to democracy, liberties or human rights. Their systems are fundamentalistic and reactionary,” he said.