Activists accuse Taliban: dozen ex-Afghan officials missing

Activists accuse the Taliban
Dozens of ex-Afghan officials missing

Before they march into Kabul, the Taliban promise amnesty for those who have worked for the government, the military, the police or the secret service. Months later, human rights activists reported numerous missing persons and executions.

According to a report by the human rights organization Human Rights Watch (HRW), numerous former government security forces have disappeared or been executed since the militant Islamist Taliban came to power in Afghanistan. Taliban forces executed or disappeared more than 100 former soldiers, police officers and intelligence officers in four of the country’s 34 provinces, according to the published report.

On 25 pages, the report documents the killings or disappearances of former members of the security forces – military, police, secret service or pro-government militias – who surrendered or were arrested by the Taliban between August 15 and the end of October. The HRW investigations had shown that in the provinces of Gasni, Helmand, Kandahar and Kunduz alone, more than 100 former members of the security forces had been killed or disappeared.

Looted documents from the previous government

The Taliban’s leadership had instructed its members to register members of units that had surrendered to them. You could also have access to abandoned employment records of the former government. They used the data to arrest or kill ex-security forces. The Taliban leadership had already declared a general amnesty for all security forces many months before they came to power and reaffirmed this several times after the fall of the capital, Kabul. Most of the provinces and the capital, Kabul, had largely fallen to the Islamists without a fight. The security forces surrendered en masse in several provinces.

“The amnesty promised by the Taliban has not stopped local commanders from executing former security forces,” said Patricia Gossmann, head of the Asia department at HRW. In response to the findings of the HRW report, the Taliban stated that they had fired 755 members responsible for abuses and set up military tribunals for murder, torture and illegal arrests. However, no information was provided to support their claim.

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