17 October 2001
Fact Sheet: The Taliban's Betrayal of the Afghan People
(Issued by the Office of International Information Programs) (1320)
(begin fact sheet)
October 17, 2001
The Afghan people have been the primary victims of Taliban misrule,
since the Taliban came to power in 1996. The Taliban militia was
formed in 1994, in response to human rights abuses by other warring
factions in Afghanistan. By 1996, the Taliban had captured Kabul, and,
with claims to religious as well as political authority, began a reign
of terror. The Taliban have made the Afghan people the unwilling hosts
of foreign armed terrorists, who have exploited and endangered the
Afghan people, and made Afghanistan a pariah in the world community.
This fact sheet outlines documented atrocities and human rights abuses
committed by the Taliban against the Afghan people.
Massacres
The Taliban have massacred hundreds of Afghan civilians, including
women and children, in Yakaolang, Mazar-I-Sharif, Bamiyan, Qezelabad,
and other towns. Many of the victims of these massacres were targeted
because of their ethnic or religious identity.
Massacre at Yakaolang: January 2001 Taliban forces committed a
massacre in Yakaolang in January 2001. The victims were primarily
Hazaras. The massacre began on January 8, 2001, and continued for four
days. The Taliban detained about 300 civilian adult males, including
staff members of local humanitarian organizations. The men were herded
to assembly points, and then shot by firing squad in public view.
According to Human Rights Watch, about 170 men are confirmed to have
been killed. According to Amnesty International, eyewitnesses reported
the deliberate killing of dozens of civilians hiding in a mosque:
Taliban soldiers fired rockets into a mosque where some 73 women,
children and elderly men had taken shelter.
Massacre at Robatak Pass: May 2000 The May 2000 massacre took place
near the Robatak pass. 31 bodies were found one site, of these, 26
were positively identified as civilians. The victims were Hazara
Shi'as. Massacre in Bamiyan: 1999 When the Taliban recaptured Bamiyan
in 1999, there were reports that Taliban forces carried out summary
executions upon entering the city. According to Amnesty International,
hundreds of men, and some instances women and children, were separated
from their families, taken away, and killed. Human Rights Watch
reports that besides executing civilians, the Taliban burned homes and
used detainees for forced labor.
Massacre in the Shomaili Plains: July 1999 Human Rights Watch reports
that a Taliban offensive here was marked by summary executions, the
abduction and disappearance of women, the burning of homes,
destruction of property, and the cutting down of fruit trees.
According to a report by the U.N. Secretary General on November 16,
1999, "The Taliban forces, who allegedly carried out these acts,
essentially treated the civilian population with hostility and made no
distinction between combatants and non-combatants."
Massacre in Mazar-I-Sharif: August 1998 In August 1998, the Taliban
captured Mazar-I-Sharif. There were reports that between 2,000 and
5,000 men, women and children -- mostly ethnic Hazara civilians --
were massacred by the Taliban after the takeover of Mazar-I-Sharif.
During the massacre, the Taliban forces carried out a systematic
search for male members for the ethnic Hazara, Tajik, and Uzbek
communities in the city. Human Rights Watch estimates that scores,
perhaps hundreds, of Hazara men and boys were summarily executed.
There were also reports that women and girls were raped and abducted
during the Taliban takeover of the city.
Massacre in Mazar-I-Sharif: September 1997 Retreating Taliban forces
summarily executed Hazara villagers near Mazar-I-Sharif, after having
failed to capture the city. Amnesty International reported that the
Taliban massacred 70 Hazara civilians, including children, in
Qezelabad, near Mazar-I-Sharif. There were also reports that the
Taliban forces in Faryab province killed some 600 civilians in late
1997.
Other Massacres: On at least two occasions, according to Human Rights
Watch, the Taliban killed delegations of Hazara elders who had
attempted to intercede with them.
Human Rights Abuses Against Women and Girls
Taliban rule has been particularly harsh for Afghan women and girls.
Taliban restrictions against women and girls are widespread,
institutionally sanctioned, and systematic in Taliban-controlled areas
of Afghanistan.
-- Girls are formally prohibited from attending school.
-- Women are prohibited, with very few exceptions, from working
outside the home, and are forbidden to leave their homes except in the
company of a male relative. These restrictions are devastating for the
thousands of Afghan war widows, who have reportedly been reduced to
selling their possessions or begging to feed their families.
-- The Taliban have significantly reduced women's access to health
care, by decreeing that women can only be treated by women doctors.
-- The Taliban threaten and beat women to enforce the Taliban's dress
code for women.
The Taliban and the Humanitarian Situation
The humanitarian situation in Afghanistan is grim. Twenty years of
internal armed conflict, and four years of devastating drought have
contributed to this situation, but the Taliban have made an already
grave situation much worse, holding the Afghan people hostage to their
political agenda.
-- The Taliban do not share the hardships they have imposed on the
Afghan people, and they have done nothing to alleviate these
hardships.
-- The Taliban have not only failed to provide security, food, and
shelter for the Afghan people, but they have disrupted the efforts of
international relief agencies to deliver desperately needed food and
medical supplies to the Afghan people.
-- The Taliban have harassed international and Afghan aid workers.
-- On October 16, the Taliban seized control of two UN warehouses,
containing more than half the World Food Program's wheat supply for
Afghanistan. The UN Security Council on October 16 demanded that the
Taliban should cease obstructing aid destined for the Afghan people.
The Taliban and Islam The Taliban have imposed their own
interpretation of Islam on the Afghan people.
-- Taliban interpretations of Islam are not widely shared in the
Muslim world.
-- Taliban words and actions misrepresent Islam.
-- The Taliban have used Islam as a cloak to practice ethnic cleansing
in Afghanistan.
-- Warning against "converting our countries into another
Afghanistan," Saudi writer Turki Al Hamad, writing in As-Sharq Al
Awsat, put it this way:"...[under the Taliban], Islam would be
relegated from a world religion with a global human and civilized
mission to a Taliban-like dogma that bans pigeon breeding, long hair,
kite flying, and listening to music.... That, at a time when the rest
of the world is de-coding the genome, experimenting with cloning,
inventing information chips, exploring outer space and tackling the
wonders of laser beams and infra-red radiation. If we want to have an
impact on today's world, the only way to do so is by interacting with
it."
Destruction of Afghan Culture
The Taliban have perverted Afghan customs, tradition, and religious
practice for their own narrow political interests.
-- The Taliban and their foreign armed militant "guests" have set
about destroying traditional Afghan culture.
-- They have prohibited all forms of music, and even traditional
recreation, such as kite flying.
-- They have looted and destroyed the historical and cultural
patrimony of the Afghan people -- the Kabul Museum, formerly one of
the finest museums in the region, is largely empty; the centuries-old
Buddhist statues in Bamiyan have been reduced to rubble.
-- They have deprived the people of Afghanistan both their history,
and their future.
Documenting Taliban Abuses
-- Several non-government organizations maintain web sites documenting
Taliban abuses.
-- The web site of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of
Afghanistan (www.rawa.fancymarketing.net) maintains a gallery of still
photos and video clips documenting massacres, beatings, and executions
by the Taliban. The documentary photos and videos were clandestinely
made by Afghan women to provide evidence of Taliban atrocities. One
video clip on this site documents the public execution of an Afghan
mother of seven.
-- Several human rights organizations maintain web sites documenting
human rights abuses by the Taliban and other factions in the Afghan
conflict. Human Rights Watch (www.hrw.org) and Amnesty International
(www.amnesty.org) provide extensive documentation of these abuses.
(end fact sheet)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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