Reports of ethnic killing by the Taliban in Afghanistan

Women's Alliance for Peace and Human Rights in Afghanistan (WAPHA), 2 September 1998

Women's Alliance for Peace and Human Rights in Afghanistan (WAPHA) condemns the Taliban for the detention, torture, and killing of the ethnic groups in northern Afghanistan. Although the Taliban have not allowed Journalists or independent human rights agencies into the area, there have been many reports of mass executions and mass arrests of Afghan ethnics. They have especially targeted the Hazara communities.

According to various news sources the Hazara are singled out by the Taliban and men, women, and children are either placed in camps, killed, imprisoned, or they have disappeared. According to the BBC news on 9/1/98, the BBC correspondent in the region has stated that there are reports that around 4, 000 people had been killed in the capture of the city of Mazar-i-Sharif. The BBC further reports that anyone found on the streets on the first day after the city was captured, had been shot. On the following days after the Taliban's occupation of the northern areas, they have carried out systematic house searches. In these searches, they have killed people in whose houses they have found weapons. The BBC also reports that in one family several male members of the family were shot to death. The women of the family kept the decomposing bodies inside the house for several days because they were too afraid to go outside to bury their dead.

Reports have been made to WAPHA by several individuals that ethnic women and children are kept in camps near the border of Pakistan, while the men are either killed or transported to unknown areas. The same individuals also have reported to WAPHA that Uzbek, Tajik and Hazara women and girls are being sold in Pakistan by the Taliban militia.

Since the Taliban invasion of the country, they have continued to commit ethnic genocide in Afghanistan; they have continued to displace internally and externally hundreds of thousands of ethnic people from their homes, villages and cities. Thousands of other ethnic people are either in the Taliban's concentration camps, or havedisappeared.

The Taliban have implemented gender apartheid policies in Afghanistan that have lead to starvation,malnutrition and disease among women and children. There are reports that women and children in Kabulare suffering from severe forms psychological disorder and depression. There are reports that some women in Kabul commitsuicide either to escape witnessing their children starve to death or to escape living under the Taliban rule. Since the Taliban have banned women from work, and their are 50 to 60 thousands widows in the city of Kabul alone, children have become the only bread earners for their families. Boys and girls as young as eight and nine years old, beg and/or sell their bodies in the street in order to provide food for their families. There are forced marriages of young girls ages eight to nine to the Taliban militia. Young boys are forced by the Taliban militia to fight in the Afghan internal arm conflict.

The Taliban have turned Afghanistan into the center for international illegal drug and arms trafficking. The sacred Afghan soil has become soiled by Taliban and Pakistan by turning it into training camps for theinternational terrorists. The terrorists are unleashed to inflict terror and death not only on the people of Afghanistan but on the people of the world as well.

Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the Taliban's tyranny of terror in Afghanistan must be stopped. The Taliban's brutal regime, who has no conception of the Islamic and international laws, who has no respect for human dignity and rights, must not be recognized by the international body. The Taliban oppressive regime who commits genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and aggression against the people of Afghanistan must not be recognized by the United Nations.

We appeal to the United Nations to start an immediate investigation of the Taliban's crimes in the north ofAfghanistan. We appeal to the United Nations and the United States to urge the Taliban to allow independent human rights agencies to investigate and monitor human rights violations in all areas under the Taliban's occupation. The United Nations, The United States and the International community must hold the Taliban accountable for all the crimes they have committed and continue to commit in Afghanistan.

[There follows an appeal for support in the form of a letter writing campaign]