The organization says more than a hundred former Taliban-arrested soldiers and police have been killed or missing in four Afghan provinces.
In Afghanistan the Taliban, an Islamist organization that rose to power in August, has killed more than a hundred former members of the police, security police and armed forces in four provinces by the end of October.
This is the assessment of the human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a report released Tuesday.
The organization documents the death or disappearance of 47 members of the former government’s armed forces in the southern provinces of Kandahar, Helmand and Ghazni, and in the northern province of Kunduz. There are a total of 34 provinces in Afghanistan, and Taliban practices vary considerably from region to region.
According to HRW, the data obtained from several provinces are in line with the data collected in the four provinces studied.
Corporate the data is based on interviews with relatives, friends, former officials, journalists, health workers, and members of the Taliban. According to the organization, in addition to the documented deaths and disappearances in four provinces, there are dozens of cases it considers certain.
According to the report, local Taliban commanders have taken advantage of statements made by former police and soldiers to the new Taliban regime.
The announcements are part of a “pardon program” announced by the Taliban leadership. Registration as a former member of the government security forces is a prerequisite for pardon.
“The amnesty promised by the Taliban leadership has not prevented local commanders from executing or abducting former members of Afghan security forces,” HRW’s deputy director for Asia Patricia Gossman comments the organization website.
“The Taliban have a duty to prevent killings, bring those responsible to justice and pay the families of the victims.”
Past soldiers and police are in a difficult situation, as failure to report makes them war criminals in the eyes of the Taliban. Especially in small localities, concealing former tasks is virtually impossible.
This is often also the case in large cities, especially if the task has been sufficiently visible. For example, a well-known police chief in Kandahar Qudratullah was arrested immediately after the Taliban occupied the city in August, and his relatives have not heard anything from him.
In most cases, however, according to HRW, the victims are ordinary soldiers and police officers who do not have the protection of local tribal leaders. The victims have often been abducted in night raids and the bodies have been left to be found by relatives. The relatives of the victims have been blackmailed, pressured and beaten.
“The Taliban’s night rides are awful,” says a resident of Helmand province interviewed by HRW.
“Their official purpose is to disarm members of the security forces who have not surrendered their weapons. Families are not afraid to report cases or even ask their relatives. ”
The Taliban In its reply of 21 November to the HRW, the Commission stated that the members of the movement who had committed the abuses had been punished. According to Patricia Gossman, the answer was a “publicity trick” that was not justified or specified in any way.
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