On April 29, 2024, Afghanistan was reviewed by the United Nations Human Rights Council’s Universal Periodic Review (UPR) working group. The UPR is a unique mechanism of the Human Rights Council that calls for each U.N. Member State to undergo a peer review of its human rights records every 4 to 5 years. The UPR provides each State the opportunity to regularly report on the actions it has taken to improve its human rights situations and receive recommendations.
As the UPR was looking into the situation in Afghanistan, atrocity crimes continued. On the same day as the U.N. review, a gunman stormed a mosque in Andisheh town of Guzara district in Herat province, western Afghanistan. Six people were killed in the attack. The mosque is said to have belonged to Afghanistan’s minority Shia community. For now, no group has claimed the attack. However, the Islamic State (also known as ISIL, ISIS) chapter in the region, Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K), is known to frequently target Shia communities. Only a week earlier, a sticky bomb exploded in a mostly Shia neighborhood of Kabul, Kot-e-Sangi, killing one person and wounding three others. Previous months have seen several similar attacks.
The Shia communities in Afghanistan, primarily comprising the Hazara, have been facing systematic discrimination, targeted attacks, marginalization, and harassment, under the Taliban’s rule. In 2023, the Taliban reportedly prevented the Shia from celebrating an important religious festival, restricted the teaching of Shia jurisprudence in universities, and banned marriages between Shia and Sunnis in parts of Afghanistan, among others. The Taliban has been failing to protect the Shia community from IS-K attacks and very little is known whether the attacks have been investigated and the perpetrators brought to account.
Also, as the UPR was considering the situation in Afghanistan, women and girls have been virtually erased from society. Among others, since taking over Afghanistan, the Taliban banned girls from secondary education under the pretext of safety. Malala Yousafzai, human rights advocate and Nobel Peace Prize laureate commented: “If you are a girl in Afghanistan, the Taliban has decided your future for you. You cannot attend secondary school or university. You cannot find open libraries where you can read. You see your mothers confined, unable to work, go to the park, get a haircut, or even see a doctor.” Subsequent months have seen a litany of restrictions that confined women and girls to their homes. Among others, in November 2022, the authorities banned access of women and girls to parks, gyms and public baths. In December 2022, they announced the immediate suspension of women from universities. Also, in December 2023, women were barred from working for domestic and international NGOs.
Because of the ever-present restrictions experienced by women and girls in Afghanistan, Afghan women human rights defenders and international experts have been calling for the recognition of the treatment of women and girls in Afghanistan as gender apartheid. While gender apartheid is not codified as an international crime yet, the topic has been receiving some attention, especially as the oppression of women and girls in Afghanistan is ever-growing and their rights are virtually non-existent.
The litany of human rights violations in Afghanistan requires an urgent response. Unfortunately, as the U.N. was reviewing the situation in Afghanistan, the Taliban de facto authorities were nowhere to face the criticism. Despite the Taliban wanting to be recognized as the rightful authorities and take a spot on the international fora, the Taliban have shown zero willingness to engage and ensure that minimum standards on human rights are afforded to everyone in the country.
