Civic space in Afghanistan has downgraded to ‘closed’ in March 2023, the lowest possible category on the CIVICUS Monitor scale, according to the latest report by the global alliance dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil society around the world on Friday.
The report said that Since the Taliban takeover there have been widespread reports of restrictions on civil society.
But the acting Afghan government repeatedly reiterated its commitment to human rights special women and girls rights in the framework of Islamic Sharia Law.
The Afghan government spokesperson often said that all people in Afghanistan enjoyed their legitimate rights and there was no single political prisoner in the country.
The government also made it clear that it was not against women education or work and waited for a suitable condition to strategies to let women and girls go to schools.
The CIVICUS report further said that individuals have been arbitrarily arrested and detained for their criticism of the Taliban members. Others have faced harassment, intimidation and violence and some have also been killed.
There have also been abductions of women human rights defenders by the Taliban officials with impunity.
They had also raided media offices, confiscated equipment and detained journalists. Some have been tortured and ill-treated.
In the lead-up to the second anniversary of Taliban rule on 15th August 2023, hardliners within the de facto government are firmly in control. Every month the de facto authorities issue additional restrictions on fundamental rights and freedoms and take further steps to enforce existing rules.
Civil society inside Afghanistan has been threatened and beaten into near total silence, while those who fled overseas have seen their families back home harassed.
The clampdown on civic space is making the monitoring and documentation of human rights violations extremely challenging. Further, families of members of civil society detained for peacefully carrying out their work are denied access to detainees, who have no access to legal representation or due process.
Testimonies from former detainees suggest that torture is widespread, including the use of repeated and brutal beatings and electrocution.
During an Enhanced Interactive Dialogue at the UN Human Rights Council on 19th June 2023, Afghan activists and civil society pointed to the continued lack of serious and sustained attention of the international community despite the grave situation in Afghanistan, and the urgent need for an accountability mechanism has not diminished.
On 20th June 2023, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan and the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls published a report which describes the widespread and systematic discrimination to which women and girls in Afghanistan are subjected, particularly since the fall of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan on 15th August 2021.
The report builds the case of prosecution of gender persecution as per the Rome Statutes. The experts believe this also gives rise to concerns that the Taliban may be responsible for gender apartheid, which although not yet an explicit international crime, points to the need for the development of ‘legal standards and tools’ on gender apartheid as a crime against humanity.
On 17th July 2023, the UN released a report detailing numerous instances of public lashings, media worker detentions, retaliatory killings of former members of the Afghan National Security Forces, the targeting of individuals linked to armed opposition groups, and new restrictions on women’s social and economic rights – all of which occurred in May and June 2023.
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