Break the Silence: End human rights violations in Afghanistan

Break the Silence
End human rights violations in Afghanistan

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"It surprises me how international community still expect that the Taliban will respect human rights."
Tarina Wodod – Human Rights Defender, Afghanistan

Three years into the Taliban rule, the country remains a hotbed of unchecked and unabated human rights abuses – gender persecution, torture, arbitrary detentions, and censorship – all with zero accountability. The world’s response? Tepid at best.

Since the Taliban seized power in 2021, Afghanistan has been in a downward spiral of human rights violations. Women are banned from all aspects of life, abuses like torture and ill-treatment, arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, censorship, among others, continue with absolute impunity. Severe restrictions on right to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and political participation of women have gone unchecked. The return of corporal punishment and absence of an independent judiciary further exacerbates these issues, leaving victims without any recourse to justice.

Even as the people of Afghanistan remain stuck in this endless nightmare, the international community has failed to take any meaningful action.

Strong words won’t stop this repression; strong action will. Governments around the world must step up to put an end to this cycle of repression.

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PETITION: END HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS IN AFGHANISTAN

To: Canada and the International Community

The Taliban as the de facto authorities in Afghanistan have shown a complete disregard of the country’s obligations under international law having severely restricted the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and association, and access to justice in the country. The Taliban’s discriminatory restrictions on the rights of women and girls, with the apparent aim of completely erasing them from public arenas, has also intensified.

The international community cannot continue to take a ‘business as usual’ approach to the human rights situation in Afghanistan.

We call on you to:

Take unified and stronger actions to urgently establish a robust accountability mechanism to hold the Taliban accountable for human rights abuses.
Use all forms of leverage to pressure the Taliban to respect and protect the rights of women and girls, end gender persecution and enable the space for women’s meaningful participation in social, political and cultural spheres.
Take concrete measures towards addressing the practice of corporal punishment by the Taliban and support the establishment of competent, independent and impartial formal justice mechanism to enable access to justice to Afghanistan population, including women.

PROGRESS TOWARDS ACCOUNTABILTY: ICC ARREST WARRANTS

On 23 January 2025, the Office of the Prosecutor of the ICC issued a statement announcing the applications for arrest warrants in the situation in Afghanistan. The Prosecutor’s applications for arrest warrants will be considered by ICC Pre-Trial Chamber judges, to determine whether they establish reasonable grounds to believe that the named individuals committed the alleged crimes. The Office of the Prosecutor also stated that investigations are ongoing. This means that further applications, both for other persons and alleged crimes, could still follow.

In 2023, Amnesty International published its report, The Taliban’s war on women, on the crime against humanity of gender persecution against women and girls in Afghanistan. The 2022 report, Death in Slow Motion: Women and Girls Under Taliban Rule,also documented the Taliban’s widespread, systematic, and intentional attacks on the rights of women, together with the use of torture and other ill-treatment and enforced disappearance. The discriminatory restrictions on the rights of women and girls affect all spheres of their lives, and they are institutionalized through the Taliban’s policies, decisions, and laws.

Afghanistan had been under preliminary examination by the ICC Prosecutor from 2007 to 2017. In 2022, the Prosecutor resumed its investigation into the situation of Afghanistan after the Court concluded that there was no genuine investigation at the domestic level. In fact, since the Taliban returned to power, they have destroyed avenues for access to fair trial and abolished the constitution and laws that were in force prior to their return.

OTHER LEGAL INITIATIVES

In September 2024, Australia, Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands announced during the UN General Assembly yesterday that they will initiate legal proceedings that could ultimately lead to action at the International Court of Justice against Afghanistan for numerous violations of the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW).

Learn More

Afghanistan: ICC Prosecutor’s application for arrest warrants against Taliban leaders is an important step towards justice for Afghan women, girls and LGBTQI persons (25 Jan 2025)

Afghanistan: International legal initiative an important step toward tackling the Taliban’s war on women (26 Sept 2024)

Afghanistan: New UNAMA Report stresses urgent need for Taliban to roll back on moral policing (10 July 2024)

Shabnam Salehi on Breaking Silence: Transnational Advocacy and Gender Based Violence in Afghanistan

Top banner: Afghan women and girls take part in a protest in front of the Ministry of Education in Kabul on March 26, 2022, demanding that high schools be reopened for girls. Photo by AHMAD SAHEL ARMAN/AFP via Getty Images.

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