UN human rights experts, including Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett, on Thursday called on the international community to reject the Taliban’s “violent and authoritarian rule” and to resist any moves toward normalizing their de facto authority, four years after they seized power in Afghanistan.
“For four years the people of Afghanistan, especially women and girls, have endured a relentless and escalating assault on their fundamental rights and freedoms,” the experts said in a joint statement. “Operating without legitimacy, the Taliban enforces an institutionalized system of gender oppression, crushes dissent, exacts reprisals, and muzzles independent media while showing outright contempt for human rights, equality and non-discrimination.”
Over the past year, the Taliban have continued to impose laws, edicts and decrees, while maintaining sweeping restrictions on women’s and girls’ rights to education, freedom of movement, work, health, expression, association, and participation in cultural and public life.
The experts said the Taliban’s “institutionalized system of gender discrimination and oppression is so severe that it amounts to the crime against humanity of persecution on grounds of gender.” They welcomed recent arrest warrants issued by the International Criminal Court for two senior Taliban leaders and expressed support for “all efforts to hold those responsible to account.”
They also raised alarm over a wide range of human rights violations, including a rise in public executions and corporal punishments, arbitrary arrests and detentions, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, torture and ill-treatment in detention, the erosion of civic space, a crackdown on human rights defenders, restrictions on religious freedom, the displacement of large numbers of people, targeting of ethnic and religious minorities, discrimination against LGBTQ+ people, and abuses committed under the guise of national security and counterterrorism.
“The situation in Afghanistan is dire but it must not be regarded as a lost cause,” they said. “The international community must resist the narrative that the current situation under Taliban rule is inevitable or irreversible. Another future is possible.”
The experts called for an “all-tools” approach to counter the Taliban’s repression. This should include principled international advocacy, accountability measures such as a new investigation mechanism with a comprehensive mandate, codification of the crime of gender apartheid, stronger support for civil society—especially women-led groups—and increased funding for humanitarian assistance and the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
They stressed the need for greater protection for Afghan refugees, internally displaced people, and those in exile, noting that deportations from Iran and Pakistan are sending Afghans back to face the persecution they fled.
“The people of Afghanistan, especially women and girls of all ages, must be actively involved in efforts to improve the situation in the country,” the experts said. “Change in Afghanistan is best led by its people. But they cannot do it alone. International support — principled, focused, sustained, and rooted in solidarity — is essential. Every day without action strengthens the Taliban’s oppressive grip. Standing side by side with the people of Afghanistan is both a moral imperative and a human rights responsibility.”
