Afghanistan Peace CampaignBy Besmillah Taban
What is the threshold for action, Afghans ask the world
In two months, it will be five years since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan.
During these five years, despite the overwhelming evidence and documentation of the Taliban’s treatment of the Afghan people, as well as their sheltering of regional and international terrorist groups, the world has not only failed to take any meaningful action to end the group’s rule, but some countries have also been working to normalize the current situation and recognize the Taliban as the legitimate governing authority of Afghanistan.
Russia became the first country to recognize the Taliban last year, China was the first to officially accept the group’s ambassador in 2023, and although Iran, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, India and Turkey have not formally recognized the Taliban, they have handed over Afghan embassies and consulates to Taliban representatives and established close working relations with the regime.
Pakistan, a country with a long history of supporting Afghan jihadist groups, initially believed that the Taliban’s return to power would serve its foreign policy interests in Afghanistan. However, today, Pakistan has shifted from being a supporter to an adversary and has itself suffered heavily from the Taliban’s rise to power.
Despite the apparent optimism reflected in the relations between some regional and international actors and the Taliban, concerns within their own security and intelligence institutions about the group’s rule have continued to grow. Beyond creating a deep internal crisis in Afghanistan, the Taliban’s return to power has imposed unprecedented security costs on countries across the region.
On the domestic front, the Taliban are reportedly imposing harsh conditions on the population, particularly targeting women and vulnerable ethnic and religious groups such as the Hazaras, Shiites and followers of Hinduism and Sikhism. Afghan women, in particular, have experienced extremely difficult conditions over these last five years. In this regard, Meryl Streep, speaking at a United Nations meeting on women’s rights in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, said “A cat has more rights than women in Afghanistan. A cat can go outside, to parks or public spaces and feel the sunlight on its face, but women in Afghanistan do not have this right.”
Conditions for women are worsening day by day, as increasingly strict restrictions and regulations affecting women’s rights are announced by the Taliban.
In one recent case, reports claim that the Taliban have formalized child marriage. In a criminal code attributed to the group, slavery is also said to have been recognized and permission has been granted for husbands to beat their wives. In addition, a woman’s right to visit her father’s house has been made conditional on her husband’s permission.
In another recent development, the Taliban announced that women are required to wear a form of dress that they refer to as “Islamic hijab.” On this pretext, a large number of women and girls have been arrested across Afghanistan and many have reportedly been subjected to torture, humiliation and, in some cases, sexual assault during detention. On June 9, the Taliban, in the Hazara-populated district of Jabr-eil in the city of Herat, reportedly arrested Hazara women and girls on the pretext of enforcing hijab regulations. This action faced public resistance and a number of women and men held peaceful protests against what they considered a clear violation of women’s rights by the Taliban.
Shortly after these demonstrations began, a large group of armed Taliban forces reportedly arrived at the scene and, without any prior warning, opened fire on the peaceful protesters, both women and men. According to reputable media reports, at least two people, including a 12-year-old child, were killed and 22 others were injured. The Taliban then reportedly arrested a large number of women and men from the area, accusing them of what they called “rebellion.” As of approximately 40 hours after the protests, there has been no information about their fate.
The Taliban do not appear to feel moral responsibility when targeting Hazaras and Shiites and do not consider such actions unlawful. This is linked, in their view, to the notion that these communities are not “true Muslims” and are labelled as “Rafida,” with any form of pressure against them being considered, in their interpretation, justified or even religiously rewarded.
A local source told the author that during and after the attack on protesters in the Jabr-eil area, Taliban forces arrested a large number of local residents, including children under the age of 18, and subjected them to severe torture before transferring them to the group’s police authorities. Although some United Nations officials and human rights organizations have expressed concern over these developments, many people in Afghanistan believe that such condemnations have no real impact on changing the situation. The Taliban dismiss international criticism as the voice of opposition coming from “infidels.”
At the same time, in Badakhshan province in northeastern Afghanistan, the Taliban have reportedly arrested and tortured large numbers of local residents, alleging they were engaged in illegal gold extraction. They have also deployed nonlocal armed forces to the area and continue widespread repression of the local population. Meanwhile, companies linked to the Taliban are reportedly extracting mineral resources across Afghanistan, particularly in Badakhshan, and distributing the revenues among themselves.
Alongside these ongoing developments, Afghanistan is increasingly described as a safe haven for regional and international terrorist groups. Credible international reports indicate that at least 25 terrorist organizations are active in Afghanistan under the umbrella of the Taliban, and that due to the support and space provided to them, these groups are steadily increasing their military capabilities and manpower.
The Taliban have also been accused of leveraging all the capacities they have developed as a form of pressure on the international community and playing a double game. Using immigrants as tools of negotiation and engaging in a form of “hostage diplomacy” are described as key approaches in their foreign relations. At the same time, the group is said to exploit the humanitarian crisis it has contributed to creating, using humanitarian aid as a tool of rule, an instrument of control and repression.
Against this background, the people of Afghanistan are asking the world: How long and to what extent must the Taliban continue internal repression and support for terrorist groups before the international community recognizes the real scale of the threat?
In the view of the author, the current situation in Afghanistan has reached a point where it not only enables ongoing cultural, human and human rights violations on a daily basis, but also, in an increasingly undeniable way, creates the capacity for a disaster even larger than the Sept. 11 attacks to occur in another part of the world.