More than 100 people linked to the former Afghan government have been killed by the Taliban
Devastating news continues to come out of Afghanistan. Shortly after the recent trip of a Taliban delegation to Oslo, a new UN report has revealed the killing of more than 100 people linked to the former Afghan regime. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also notes "enforced disappearances and other violations affecting the right to life and physical integrity". Among the victims are military personnel, civil servants and other citizens who worked with foreign troops, such as translators.
The Afghan interpreters sought asylum from the various countries deployed in Afghanistan before their withdrawal because, as they claimed, the Taliban would kill them for collaborating with foreigners. Although several governments organised flights to evacuate the translators from the country, many of them are still in Afghanistan. Fundamentalists are behind most of the killings, despite their promises of "amnesty" for members of the former Ashraf Ghani-led government and Afghan security forces.
The report, which has been accessed by several media outlets including the Associated Press, notes that activists and reporters have been "attacked, intimidated, harassed, arbitrarily arrested, ill-treated and killed". The UN has reported 44 cases of temporary arrests, beatings and threats of intimidation, 42 of them by the Taliban.
Last September, images of Afghan journalists Taqi Daryabi and Nematullah Naqdi highlighted the Taliban's brutality against the media. The Islamists beat the reporters of the Etilaaz Rot newspaper with electric cables, rubber bands and whips for four hours for covering the women's demonstrations. Also noteworthy in this regard is the oppression of Afghan women citizens by the authorities. The Taliban claim to be more moderate than their predecessors in the 1990s, but the truth is that women and girls are excluded from work and education and are subjected to gross human rights violations.
Tamana Zaryabi Paryani and Parawana Ibrahimkhel are the latest Afghan women activists to go missing in the country. Both had been involved in protests against misogynist laws imposed by the Taliban. Paryani released a video showing the moment when militants knocked on her door. "Please help, the Taliban have come to my house, my sisters are at home," she said. Despite the video's impact, the Taliban have dismissed the footage as "fake", calling it a "fabricated drama", as described by a police spokesman in Kabul, Mobin Khan. However, these are not the only cases of missing Afghans since the Taliban took power. Human rights organisations have also demanded information on other missing women, such as Alia Azizi, a prison officer in Herat, whose whereabouts have been unknown since early October.
The UN mission in Afghanistan has received further "credible allegations of extrajudicial killings of at least 50 individuals suspected of being affiliated with IS-K". Since the Taliban seized Kabul last August and foreign forces withdrew, terrorist activity in the Asian country has seen a dangerous increase. Shia mosques have been attacked in cities such as Kunduz and Kandahar. It is precisely this religious minority, which represents around 15 % of the Afghan population, that is one of the most targeted by terrorists and also by the Taliban.
On the other hand, IS-K is also at war with the Taliban, the current rulers of the country. In September, two fighters were killed at a checkpoint by an armed terrorist. Two months later, Maulvi Hamdullah Mukhlis, a senior Taliban official, was killed in an attack on a military hospital in Kabul. Mukhlis was a member of the Badri 313 special forces and the Haqqani network.
Guterres' allegations come a week after the Taliban travelled to Oslo seeking humanitarian aid and international recognition. At a hotel in the Norwegian capital, the fundamentalists met with representatives of the United States, France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, the European Union and Norway. "The fact that we have come to Norway and Norway has given us this opportunity is a success in itself because we have shared the international stage," Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi told reporters. However, Western representatives have made it a condition for the resumption of funding that the authorities respect human rights.
Although the meeting was aimed at finding a solution to the serious humanitarian crisis facing Afghan citizens, as announced by Norwegian Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt, the meeting has created controversy among Afghans. "It saddens me that a country like Norway is organising this summit and making deals with terrorists at the negotiating table," lamented Wahida Amiri, a feminist activist who has been demonstrating in Kabul since August. "The world should be ashamed to accept this and open its doors to the Taliban," she added.