KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – The Taliban have arrested two religious scholars in Kabul after they criticized the group’s Supreme Leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, for monopolizing power, local sources confirm.
The clerics, identified as Mahmood Hassan and Abdul Qadir Qanit, were detained on Tuesday, January 28, according to the sources. Their fate and whereabouts remain unknown, and Taliban authorities have yet to comment on the arrests.
Mahmood Hassan, originally from Panjshir province, previously served as the head of Hajj and Religious Affairs in the province under the former government. Abdul Qadir Qanit, a native of Takhar province, had been detained by Taliban intelligence agents once before for two days, according to the sources.
Sources say both scholars had recently spoken out against Akhundzada’s concentration of power in Kandahar, where he resides, and had called for the formation of an inclusive government in Afghanistan.
Since regaining power in August 2021, the Taliban have detained, tortured, and in some cases killed many clerics, activists, and journalists who have dared to criticize or challenge the regime’s policies and practices.
Dozens of civil society members, women protesters, and rights defenders have been detained, tortured, and sentenced to months or years in prison for engaging in peaceful protests and speaking out against the Taliban’s oppressive rule.
In his report last year, Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Afghanistan, highlighted that “the fear of arbitrary arrest and, in some cases, enforced disappearance by the Taliban has further restricted what remains of Afghanistan’s rapidly diminishing civic space.”
Bennett and other UN experts, along with rights groups, have repeatedly called on the Taliban to respect the rights and freedoms of Afghan citizens and to end arbitrary arrest and detention of individuals on the basis of their opinion.
