Serious rights violations belie the promises and gestures of the Taliban

Taliban militiamen stand guard during a Shiite religious celebration in Herat on Thursday.

The facts have begun to refute the words of the Taliban leaders. Despite their announcement of a general amnesty and ensuring that they would respect human rights, including those of women, and freedom of the press, a string of cases is exposing them. In the last of them, Amnesty International (AI) has denounced this Friday that the Islamist militiamen (Sunnis) killed nine men of Hazara ethnic group (a minority of Chií confession) shortly after taking the province of Ghazni last month.

A team of AI investigators has collected testimonies of the shooting murder of three men and the death of three others under torture.

The massacre took place in the village of Mundarakht, in the Malistan district, between 4 and 6 July.

The organization fears that these deaths are only the tip of the iceberg of the outrages that the Taliban have committed in their advance towards Kabul, since, it denounces, “they have cut off mobile phone service in many of the areas that they have recently captured and control. the photographs and videos that are disseminated from those regions ”.

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For AI Secretary General Agnes Callamard, "the brutality and cold blood of these killings recalls the record of the Taliban and is a dire indicator of what could happen to the Taliban government."

In his opinion, they are proof that "ethnic and religious minorities continue to be at particular risk under the Taliban government in Afghanistan."

Since their entry into Kabul last Sunday, Islamic extremists have been trying to distance themselves from the brutality of their dictatorship (1996-2001) with more moderate language and gestures towards minorities that had raised some hopes.

The militia on Thursday allowed the Shiites to hold their Ashura processions (in memory of their third Imam) in Kabul and Herat, and had previously advertised as the appointment of a Hazara county chief in Balkhab.

A confidential UN report has also confirmed that the Taliban are searching house to house for citizens who have worked for NATO or previous Afghan governments, despite having promised "not to take revenge on collaborators."

Civil activists, especially women, have also reported being the object of a systematic search and the arrest of relatives when they cannot find who they are persecuting.

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A case that has come to light this Friday confirms this way of proceeding. In their search for an Afghan journalist from German television Deutsche Welle (DW), the Taliban shot and killed one member of his family and seriously wounded another. According to the network, the reporter, whom it has not identified, works in Germany. Previously, they had already searched the addresses of three other of their collaborators.

Other Afghan journalists have reported on social media these days beatings and visits to their homes by the Taliban. All this makes them doubt the promise to allow a free press made by the spokesman for the Islamist militia, Zabihullah Mujahid, during his first press conference last Tuesday. If true, it would mean an important change from their previous regime when they limited information to their propaganda organ and banned television. Of course, there were no mobile phones or the internet then, whose social networks the Taliban themselves use profusely.

“I had few expectations after the Zabihullah Mujahid conference, but it has become clear that there is a gap between deeds and words: today [on Thursday] I went to cover a story in Kabul, a Taliban took my camera and his colleague took me away. he hit and fired into the air, ”tweeted journalist Hasiba Atakpal.

ذبيح الله مجاهد کنفرانس وروسته مې لږه تمه وه خو اوس ثابته شوه چې عمل او خبرې واټن لري.

نن مونږ کابل ښار کې يو خبر درلود ، کېمره يې راڅخه واخېسته همکار يې راته وواهه او هوايي ډزې یې وکړې.

د رسنيو ملاتړي بنسټونه روان وضعيت څاري تمه ده د بيان ازادۍ ته ژمنتيا دې ثابته کړي.

- Haisba Atakpal (@Hasiba_Atakpal) August 19, 2021

Human Rights Watch also insists that the Taliban have to demonstrate their commitment to human rights with actions and not vague promises.

Its Asia activism director, John Sifton, says that to “gain the trust of the country and the world, the Taliban authorities have to respect the human rights of everyone throughout Afghanistan, and allow the United Nations and other independent organizations to monitor the situation. ”.

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