UN: The UN has said there are “credible allegations” of more than 100 extrajudicial killings in Afghanistan since the Taliban took power in August, with most blamed on the country’s new rulers.
UN deputy rights chief Nada Al-Nashif said she was deeply alarmed by continuing reports of such killings, despite a general amnesty announced by the Taliban after their August 15 takeover.
“Between August and November, we received credible allegations of more than 100 killings of former Afghan national security forces and others associated with the former government,” she told the UN Human Rights Council on Tuesday.
“At least 72 of these killings,” she said, were “attributed to the Taliban”.
“In several cases, the bodies were publicly displayed. This has exacerbated fear among this sizeable category of the population,” she said.
Taliban Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi said the government was “fully committed” to the amnesty decree, and denied employees of the previous administration were being persecuted. Anyone “found breaching the amnesty decree will be prosecuted and penalised”, he said.
“Incidents will be thoroughly investigated but unsubstantiated rumours should not be taken at face value.”
Al-Nashif, who presented Tuesday’s update to the council on behalf of UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet, said many members of the jihadist Islamic State-Khorasan group — a main Taliban enemy — had also been killed.
“In Nangarhar Province alone, there… appears to be a pattern of at least 50 extrajudicial killings of individuals suspected to be members of the ISIL-KP,” she said, with reports of “brutal methods… including hanging, beheadings, and public display of corpses”. In a report released Wednesday, Amnesty International also said members of the Taliban had tortured and killed ethnic and religious minorities, former Afghan soldiers and suspected government sympathisers as they seized control of Afghanistan in July and August.
“Our new evidence shows that, far from the seamless transition of power that the Taliban claimed happened, the people of Afghanistan have once again paid with their lives,” said Amnesty secretary general Agnes Callamard.
– THE HINDU