Killings, torture reports expose Taliban brutality

The report from UNAMA contradicts Afghan authorities’ denial of human rights violations

KABUL, Afghanistan (AFP) — The Taliban have carried out hundreds of human rights violations in Afghanistan since seizing power last year, the United Nations said Wednesday, including extra judicial killings and torture.

“There’s no denying that the findings of our report are extremely serious,” Markus Potzel, acting head of the United Nations mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), told a news conference in Kabul.

The Taliban have routinely denied accusation of rights abuses since overthrowing the previous Western-backed government, but a UNAMA report released Wednesday listed multiple accounts.

It documented 160 allegations of extra judicial killings, 56 incidents of torture and ill treatment and more than 170 arbitrary arrests and detentions against former government officials and national security force members since August.

The most common methods of torture included kicking, punching and slapping, beatings with cables and pipes and use of electric shock devices.

It documented more than 200 instances of cruel, inhuman or degrading punishments — including beating shopkeepers for not attending mosque -- and more than 100 cases of excessive use of force.

UNAMA had 87 reports of violence against women and girls including murder, rape, suicide, forced marriages including child marriage, assault and battery, as well as two cases of honour killing — none of which have been registered with the formal justice system.

Among the cases documented, were a couple who were publically stoned to death after being accused of having an affair.

Fiona Frazer, head of the UN’s human rights mission in

Afghanistan, said “impunity prevails” in Afghanistan, and acknowledged there may be an under-reporting of allegations.

UNAMA had 87 reports of violence against women and girls.

She said UNAMA was “particularly concerned” about the involvement of the Taliban’s religious police and intelligence service in abuses.