KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Local sources in northeastern Badakhshan province report that Taliban authorities have detained at least 15 members of the Ismaili Shia community in the province.
The sources told KabulNow today that affiliates of Juma Khan, the Taliban’s district governor in Nusai district, detained these individuals from their homes last Wednesday, May 1.
The detainees are accused of being affiliated with armed opposition groups against the Taliban. However, they are said to be farmers with no ties to any such group.
Taliban authorities in the province have not yet commented on the matter. However, the regime has long been accused of mistreating and discriminating against ethnic groups and religious minorities.
The Taliban in Badakhshan province have been pressuring the Shia-Ismaili community to convert to Sunni Islam. Local sources report that the regime even links the provision of humanitarian aid to this community with their conversion to Sunni Islam.
While Afghanistan’s 2004 constitution permitted Shia to use Jafari jurisprudence in court cases involving personal matters, the Taliban authorities restricted this right. Moreover, in many provinces, they imposed restrictions on the teaching of Shia jurisprudence in universities.
The Taliban prevented Shias from observing an important religious day, Ashura, in Kabul and other provinces last year. Additionally, the regime has reportedly banned marriage between Shia and Sunni in Badakhshan and many other provinces in the country.
Members of the religious minority community accuse the Taliban of backtracking on their own promise to protect them and grant them the right to freely observe their faith. The community also accuses the ruling regime of failing to prevent deadly attacks on them by terrorist groups, particularly the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan (IS-KP).
Amnesty International, in its report released last month, stated that under Taliban rule in Afghanistan, ethnic groups, religious minorities, and members of the LGBT community have experienced severe discrimination, increasing marginalization, and prejudice.
The international rights group noted that in Afghanistan, religious minorities, including Shia, Sikhs, Christians, Ahmadyya, and Ismailis, continue to face discrimination, as the Taliban ensured that formal religious teaching is exclusively based on the Sunni sect of Islam.
“The Taliban excluded Shia jurisprudence from the education system so that religious teaching was exclusively based on the Sunni sect of Islam,” Amnesty International said. “Restrictions on religious events and celebrations were imposed citing security reasons. These included restrictions on the Ashura commemoration in July, which is mainly observed by Shia Muslims,” it added.
