The Taliban has continued to violate restrict and violate human rights, particularly of women and girls, across Afghanistan, the UN report on the state of human rights for the months of May and June has said.
The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) says that in May, the group prohibited female medical students from taking “Exit Supplementary Exam” in addition to previous bans imposed on women’s education.
The UN says, that it “recorded instances where the de facto authorities took steps to enforce previously announced limitations on women’s freedom of movement and participation in employment.”
On 1 May, for instance, 2 female staff of an NGO were detained at an airport for traveling without male guardians. And in June, agents from the group’s General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI), detained and interrogating a midwife on her way to work. “She was threatened wit”They reportedly threatened her with death if she continued her work. She resigned two days later.”
The report says that the Taliban’s “severe restrictions” women working for the UN “continue to impact” its work.
The UN says that the Taliban continued to carry public corporal punishments. On 21 May, a woman was lashed 39 times in public in Parwan province. And on 24 May, 6 men were lashed 39 times each for “sodomy”, with “around 2000 people” watching the spectacle.
The group has also continued extrajudicial killings, the UN says. The report further adds that the group has also continued to arbitrarily detain journalists.
The report says that the group’s Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice continues to enforce its edicts, which “interfere with the fundamental freedoms and daily lives of women and girls.”
The group’s longtime spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid, on Monday rejected the report as “propaganda”.
He said in a statement in Persian on Twitter that the report had been based on “anecdotes of people who have fled Afghanistan”.
