Naseer Ahmad Faiq, Afghanistan’s representative to the United Nations, asked the UN’s member states to take practical measures to prevent the targeted killing of Hazaras and to form a commission to investigate and report on all serious violations of human rights.
In his speech at the United Nations General Assembly Third Committee (SOCHUM or C3), referring to the deadly suicide attack on the Kaaj educational center in the west of Kabul, he said that such attacks show a clear hostility towards accessibility of a certain ethnic group to education and failure of the Taliban in providing security.
These actions are violations of international human rights principles and should be investigated as crimes of genocide, added Faiq.
“I request the member states of the United Nations to take practical measures to prevent the targeted killing of the Hazaras by forming a fact-finding committee to investigate and report on all serious violations of human rights, including the genocide of the Hazaras, forced displacements, and extrajudicial killings”, Faiq added in his statement.
Faiq called the human rights situation in Afghanistan “extremely alarming” and said that there are shocking reports of severe and continuous violation of human rights by the Taliban. These violations include “extrajudicial killings, torture, harsh treatment, arbitrary arrests and detentions of former security forces, journalists, human rights advocates and people accused of having relations with the national resistance front (NRF).
He emphasized that there are authentic reports of large-scale torture and killing of prisoners of war without trial and forced displacements of certain ethnic groups in various provinces of Afghanistan, including Badakhshan, Baghlan, Panjshir, Sar-e Pol and Takhar.
These actions are serious violations of human rights and war crimes, Faiq said.
He described the situation of women and girls as extremely worrying and said that currently there is a gender apartheid ongoing in Afghanistan.
The representative of Afghanistan to the UN requested all its member states and the international community to stand by the people of Afghanistan and not forget them.
Faiq said that the international community should keep the necessary pressure on the Taliban to make them live up to their commitments and to respect human rights for all the people of Afghanistan, in particular women and girls.
“The international community must use all available means to put pressure on the de facto authorities of the Taliban to form an inclusive and accountable government system based on the rule of law, justice and the will of the people. I also urge all the member states to support the United Nations and the United Nations Assistance Missions in Afghanistan (UNAMA). UNAMA needs to play a stronger role in the restoration, promotion, and protection of women’s rights through overseeing and reporting on the situation of human rights in the country, including the documentation of violations by all parties”, Faiq shared part of his speech at the UNGA meeting today.
