Image used for representative purpose only
| Photo Credit: AP

The Taliban said Thursday (September 26, 2024) it was absurd to accuse them of gender discrimination and other human rights violations, as four countries vow to hold Afghanistan’s rulers accountable under international law for their treatment of women and girls.

Australia, Canada, Germany and the Netherlands are set to start legal proceedings against the Taliban for violating a U.N. convention on women, to which Afghanistan is a party.

The countries launched the initiative on Wednesday on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly, which is taking place in New York until Monday.

Despite promising more moderate rule after they seized power in 2021, the Taliban have barred women and girls from education beyond sixth grade, many public spaces and most jobs. In August, the Vice and Virtue Ministry issued laws banning women’s bare faces and prohibiting them from raising their voices in public.

More than 20 countries expressed their support Thursday for the proposed legal action against the Taliban.

“We condemn the gross and systematic human rights violations and abuses in Afghanistan, particularly the gender-based discrimination against women and girls,” the countries said.

Also Read:How will the morality law hit Afghan women?

“Afghanistan is responsible under international law for its ongoing gross and systematic violation of numerous obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women,” they added.

The countries said they did not politically recognize the Taliban as the legitimate leaders of the Afghan population.

“Afghanistan’s failure to fulfill its human rights treaty obligations is a key obstacle to normalization of relations,” they said.

The Taliban’s deputy spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said human rights were protected in Afghanistan and that nobody faced discrimination.

“Unfortunately, an attempt is being made to spread propaganda against Afghanistan through the mouths of several fugitive (Afghan) women and misrepresent the situation,” he said on social media platform X.

“It is absurd to accuse the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan of violating human rights and gender discrimination,” he added.

The Taliban reject all criticism of their policies, especially those affecting women and girls, describing it as interference. They maintain that their actions are in line with their interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia.

Fereshta Abbasi, an Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch, urged other countries to register their support for the four countries’ legal action and for them to involve Afghan women as the process moved forward.

“The announcement by Germany, Canada, Australia and the Netherlands may mark the beginning of a path to justice for the Taliban’s egregious human rights violations against Afghan women and girls,” said Ms. Abbasi.

An Afghan woman clad in a burqa walks past a graffiti painted wall, in Herat, west of Kabul, Afghanistan on Thursday, May 13, 2010. (AP Photo/Reza Shirmohammadi)
| Photo Credit: REZA SHIRMOHAMMADI

The Taliban government’s Morality Ministry said it would not cooperate with the United Nations mission in Afghanistan, calling it “an opposing side”.

The announcement comes after the UN mission (UNAMA) warned that a new morality law — requiring women to cover up completely and not raise their voices — would damage prospects for engagement with the international community.

The Taliban Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (PVPV) said that “due to its continued propaganda, the PVPV will not provide any support or cooperation with UNAMA, which will be considered as an opposing side”.

“We want international organisations, countries, and those individuals who criticised the mentioned law to respect the religious values of Muslims and refrain from such criticisms and statements that insult Islamic values and sanctities,” the ministry said in a statement posted to social media Thursday.

Last week, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, was banned from entering the country after joining other UN experts in a statement urging the international community to “not normalise the de facto authorities or their appalling human rights violations”.

Chief Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told local media Tolo News that Mr. Bennett “was appointed to Afghanistan to spread propaganda and he is not someone whose words we can trust.”

The Taliban authorities, which are yet to be formally recognised by any nation, are still pushing to fill Afghanistan’s seat at the UN, which is held by a former official of the ousted foreign-backed government.

Punishments

The Taliban government’s 35-article morality law was published in the official gazette on July 31.

It imposes wide-ranging rules on men’s clothing and attending prayers as well as bans on keeping photos of living beings, homosexuality, animal fighting, playing music in public and non-Muslim holidays.

The law sets out graduated punishments, from verbal warnings to threats, fines and detentions of varying lengths.

Roza Otunbayeva, head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, has called the law a “distressing vision for Afghanistan’s future, where moral inspectors have discretionary powers to threaten and detain anyone based on broad and sometimes vague lists of infractions”.

The United Nations and the European Union have warned that the law could damage prospects for engagement with the international community.

UNAMA is mandated by the UN Security Council to engage with the Taliban authorities, including the PVPV, with which it has directly raised concerns over moral oversight policy and practices of enforcement.

In a report last month, UNAMA said the ministry had a growing role in enforcing religious law in Afghanistan and accused it of creating a “climate of fear”.

The virtue and vice ministry implements an austere vision of Islam, which has increasingly dominated Afghanistan since the 2021 Taliban takeover.

Morality police squads are empowered to scold, arrest and punish citizens violating edicts. The laws have marginalised women, effectively banned music and outlawed other activities deemed un-Islamic.

The Taliban government has consistently dismissed international criticism of its policies, including restrictions on women that the UN has labelled “gender apartheid”.

The law is “firmly rooted in Islamic teachings” that should be respected and understood, chief government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a statement on Monday.

“To reject these laws without such understanding is, in our view, an expression of arrogance,” he said, adding that for a Muslim to criticise the law “may even lead to the decline of their faith”.