Taliban continues unabated human rights violations in war-torn Afghanistan

Image credit: PTI

Kabul: Amid the recent intensification of conflict with the Afghan Government, the Taliban continues to violate human rights unabatedly by killing civilians, destroying mosques and assaulting women. Taliban fighters abducted two policewomen in Ghazni city when they were on their way home from work on Sunday (August 8).

They have now been taken to an unknown location by the Taliban. The Afghan Interior Ministry informed on Saturday (August 7) that the Taliban have carried out terrorist attacks on 24 mosques since the beginning of the year.

The ministry statement detailed that 30 religious scholars had been killed and 70 had been injured in these attacks. Further, mosques have also been significantly damaged in Taliban attacks.

The territories that have fallen to the Taliban in the past few days in Afghanistan have witnessed horrors from the past. There have been reports of Taliban forces killing civilians and off-duty security personnel as well as bombing homes and assaulting women.

Taliban continues to capture new areas and subsequently impose a regime that intends to take Afghanistan to old days under its rule, which means the non-existence of human values and even death punishment for petty crimes or violations of rules.

The Taliban attacked the Ahmad Shah Abdali Kandahar Airport and fired several rockets at parts of the airport on the morning of August 8th. Flights were suspended following rocket attacks and later resumed late at night on the same day.

Toofan Omari, the head of Paktia Voice Radio and the `Prosecutor for Combating Internal and External Security Crimes at the Bagram Prison Justice Center` was killed by the Taliban in the Dehsabz district of Kabul province, reported Khaama Press News Agency.

Paktia Police informed on August 8 that a mine had exploded in the Chaniya area of Sayed Karam district of Paktia province in which 12 people, including women and children, were killed and two others were injured.

Mustapha Ben Messaoud, Chief Field Operations, UNICEF Afghanistan said that while children have been forced to flee their homes, most of the time they are not fed healthily. They do not even know where their other food will come from.

Further, Messaoud predicts that by the end of this year, one in two children under the age of five in Afghanistan will be mentally ill or malnourished due to malnutrition and will not be able to attend school. A toddler was killed in the Taliban`s attack in Takhar province.

Several videos of the sister of the toddler emerged on social media where she was seen crying and trying to wake her brother up. Zubair Shah Agha, a central committee member of the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) has shared an emotional video of an Afghan woman, trying to put across the pain of the country`s people.

"Greet the woman with both hands who has interpreted the pain of Afghans. The world`s media, human rights organisations and human rights activists have joined forces to remain silent regarding the killers. The Pashtun-Afghan genocide has been going on for the last 40 years. And the world is just watching," the PTM member said in a tweet (roughly translated from Pashto).

After capturing new areas in Afghanistan, the Taliban has re-imposed repressive laws and retrograde policies on Afghan women that defined its 1996-2001 rule when they enforced their version of Islamic Sharia law.

New fatwas (decrees) issued by them forbid women from going out of their homes without male companions while forces men to grow a beard. They also have come up with dowry regulations for girls, said Merajuddin Sharifi, a social activist.

"They urged women in a statement to not leave home without a male relative. Taliban insist on trials without evidence," he said. There are more sanctions on women. Now, they cannot ride a taxi and be always covered in a burqa.

Revoking old memories, the Taliban has banned the production and distribution of music or any audio-visual entertainment. Women are worse affected by the Taliban brutalities. They are being beaten in public and even killed.

Innocent Afghani women are being forced into "jihad al-nikah", in which daughters and wives are forcefully sent to terrorists to serve them sexually.

The sporadic killing amply describes how much the Taliban cares for human rights. Human rights breaches and killings of civilians, including children, in the war-torn country by the Taliban are reaching new highs.