Human rights groups call on UN to establish dedicated accountability mechanism in Afghanistan
Sep 09, 2022
Kabul [Afghanistan], September 9 : Human rights groups called on the United Nations for stronger accountability in Afghanistan.
In an open letter to the UN, they called for the establishment of a dedicated accountability mechanism by the Human Rights Council (HRC), alongside the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, reported Tolo News.
"The signatory organizations call your attention to the deplorable state of human rights in Afghanistan and in particular the absolute lack of accountability for gross and systematic human rights violations and abuses, including crimes under international law, occurring in Afghanistan, especially against women and girls, ethnic and religious minorities, journalists, and human rights defenders," the letter read.
Richard Bennett is the current UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, and the renewal of his post was called for in the open letter, reported Tolo News.
"The Western countries will call for the renewal of Richard Bennett. China and Russia will also accept it but the report of Richard Bennett is made from outside Afghanistan. For better transparency, it is better than Richard Bennett to stay in Kabul and write the report from Kabul," said Torek Farhadi, a political analyst.
This comes as the Taliban has repeatedly denied the reports of the violations of human rights, and called them baseless, reported Tolo News.
The Taliban stressed that it is committed to human rights and women's rights based on Islamic values.
Since the Taliban seized power in Kabul last year, the human rights situation has been exacerbated by a nationwide economic, financial and humanitarian crisis of unprecedented scale.
The Taliban dismantled the system to respond to gender-based violence, created new barriers to women accessing health care, blocked women's aid workers from doing their jobs, and attacked women's rights protesters.
With the US troops' withdrawal from the country, large-scale violence has been unleashed creating political uncertainty in different parts of the country.
At least 59 per cent of the population is now in need of humanitarian assistance - an increase of 6 million people compared with the beginning of 2021, according to UNAMA.
