LAHORE: The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has called upon the UN Security Council and its member states to reconsider their decision to engage with the Afghan Taliban regime in the upcoming Doha III meeting on June 30, 2024.
In a letter addressed to the Security Council, the HRCP highlighted the need for the Taliban to end gender apartheid and commit to protecting human rights, especially those of women and religious minorities, before being recognised on the international stage. The HRCP has observed with increasing alarm a rapid escalation in militancy and religious extremism in the Pakistani province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (which adjoins Afghanistan) since the fall of Kabul in August 2021. Based on well-documented evidence, this is attributed largely to the proscribed Tehreek Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which is closely associated with and influenced by, the Afghan Taliban regime.
In the letter, the HRCP mentioned that the Afghan Taliban’s policy of institutionalised discrimination and violence against women in Afghanistan has emboldened the TTP and hardline clerics in Pakistan in numerous ways, leading to constant and egregious violations of women’s rights to life, security, work, education, political participation, and freedom of movement. According to the HRCP, girls’ schools in the newly merged districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have been routinely attacked by militants, leading to higher dropout rates and instilling fear among residents. In these areas, women have also been banned from visiting markets and public spaces by tribal elders influenced by the Afghan Taliban.
In August 2023, for example, local authorities banned women from visiting a park in the town of Bannu, following protests by Islamist hardline clerics who alleged that the park was spreading ‘obscenity and vulgarity.’ The HRCP further mentioned that in November 2023, religious leaders in Kohistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, warned women against working for non-government organisations, even approaching the police to enforce their decision and bar women working for NGOs from entering the district.
In February 2024, the same religious leaders in Kohistan issued a decree prohibiting women from participating in the national elections, both as voters and candidates. In November 2023, a young girl was killed in Mansehra, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, on the orders of a local jirga for bringing ‘dishonour’ to her family after a video allegedly featuring her went viral on social media platforms.
Additionally, the HRCP said in the letter, that the region of Swat, which witnessed a deadly TTP insurgency from 2007 to 2009, has also seen rising incidents of violence and discrimination against women and girls since the TTP resurfaced in the area in 2022. In October 2022, one man was killed and two students were injured when unidentified militants opened fire on a school van in Swat. The incident brought back memories of a similar attack on schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai in October 2012.
In October 2023, girls in Swat were banned by local clerics from playing sports because this encouraged ‘immodesty’. According to the HRCP, residents of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa have long warned the Pakistani state of the resurgence of the TTP and its ill effects. They have also led sustained protests in different areas of the province, urging the government to take strong action against such elements. Political activists who have dared to speak up against the TTP have also been targeted, allegedly by TTP militants, during election campaigns.
The HRCP mentioned that a democratic dispensation must be encouraged in Afghanistan, without which the ripple effect of the present undemocratic regime will become entrenched in neighbouring Pakistan.
The September 11, 2001, attacks demonstrated clearly that terror cannot be localised nor contained within geographic boundaries. The international community must not repeat the mistakes of the past: it must demand that the Afghan Taliban regime demonstrate its commitment to fundamental rights for women and religious minorities and pave the way for a stable, inclusive, and representative democracy in Afghanistan.
The HRCP joins other rights organisations in urging you to support democratic elements in Afghanistan rather than moving closer to accepting the legitimacy of the unelected Afghan Taliban regime, concluded HRCP in a letter to the UNSC.