#records #hundreds #killings #violations #Taliban
The Taliban have committed hundreds of human rights abuses in Afghanistan since seizing power last year, the United Nations said on Wednesday, including extrajudicial killings and torture.
“There is no denying that the findings of our report are extremely serious,” Markus Potzel, acting head of the United Nations Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), said at a news conference in Kabul.
The Taliban have routinely denied allegations of rights abuses since toppling the previous Western-backed government, but a UNAMA report released on Wednesday lists multiple accounts.
It has documented 160 allegations of extrajudicial killings, 56 cases of torture and ill-treatment, and more than 170 arbitrary arrests and detentions of former government officials and members of the national security forces since August.
The most common torture methods included kicking, hitting and slapping, beating with cables and pipes, and the use of electric batons.
It documented more than 200 cases of cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment – including beatings of shopkeepers for not attending the mosque – and more than 100 cases of excessive use of force.
Since the end of the war, security across the country has improved significantly, with a huge drop in civilian casualties.
But the Taliban – notorious for their brutal reign of terror between 1996 and 2001 – severely curtailed the freedoms of Afghans, particularly women and girls.
UNAMA has received 87 reports of violence against women and girls, including murder, rape, suicide, forced marriages including child marriage, assault and assault, and two counts of honor killings – none of which have been registered with formal justice.
Among the documented cases was a couple who were publicly stoned to death after being accused of having an affair.
Fiona Frazer, head of the UN human rights mission in Afghanistan, said there is “impunity in Afghanistan” and acknowledged that allegations may be underreported.
She said UNAMA was “particularly concerned” about the involvement of the Taliban’s religious police and intelligence services in human rights abuses.
UNAMA said more than 700 civilians were killed and at least 1,400 injured in attacks mostly attributed to the local branch of Islamic State and unexploded mines.
Senior government spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid dismissed the report.
“No arbitrary killings or arrests are allowed in the country. If someone kills or arrests arbitrarily, they are considered a criminal and face Sharia law,” he tweeted.
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