Geneva, Switzerland
Reuters
The ousted Afghan Government and activist groups called on the main UN human rights body on Monday to investigate reports of targeted killings and restrictions on women and free speech by the ruling Taliban.
The flag of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Taliban) is raised at the military airfield in Kabul, Afghanistan, on 5th September. PICTURE: WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters.
The appeals, which came as the European Union prepares to submit a draft resolution on Afghanistan, was backed by the head of the country’s independent commission on human rights, who said that many of its own activities have been suspended.
WAR CRIMES PROSECUTOR WOULD NOT FOCUS ON US FORCES IN NEW ICC AFGHANISTAN PROBE
The International Criminal Court prosecutor on Monday said he was seeking approval to resume a war crimes investigation of Afghanistan, focusing on the actions of the Taliban and the Islamic State Khorasan (ISIS-K) militia.
A statement said the request was being made to the court’s judges in light of developments since the Taliban militants seized control of Afghanistan in a lightning advance last month.
Prosecutors had previously also looked into suspected crimes by US forces and Afghan government troops. But Karim Khan, six months into his nine-year tenure, said they would now “deprioritise” that element due to lack of resources, and instead focus on “the scale and nature of crimes within the jurisdiction of the court”.
Afghan human rights activist Horia Mosadiq, who has been helping victims to support the ICC probe for many years, called the announcement “an insult to thousands of other victims of crimes by Afghan Government forces and US and NATO forces”.
The ICC had already spent 15 years looking into war crimes allegations in Afghanistan before opening a full investigation last year.
But that probe was put on hold by the Afghan Government, which said it was investigating the crimes itself. The Hague-based ICC is a court of last resort, intervening only when a member country is unable or unwilling to prosecute war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide.
Khan said the fall of the internationally recognised Afghan Government and its replacement by the Taliban represented a “significant change of circumstances”.
“After reviewing matters carefully, I have reached the conclusion that, at this time, there is no longer the prospect of genuine and effective domestic investigations…within Afghanistan,” his statement said.
The court had found there was a reasonable basis to believe war crimes had been committed between 2003 and 2014, among them suspected mass killings of civilians by the Taliban, as well as suspected torture of prisoners by Afghan authorities and, to a lesser extent, by US forces and the US CIA.
But the United States is not a party to the ICC, and imposed sanctions against the office of the prosecutor for investigating the role of US forces. Shifting the focus of the probe could help mend the court’s relationship with Washington.
“We’re pleased to see that the ICC prioritises resources to focus on the greatest of allegations and atrocity crimes,” State Department spokesperson Jalina Porter told reporters in response to the prosecutor’s statement.
A lawyer who represents Afghan victims of suspected US torture in the ICC investigation said the narrowing of its focus was “deeply flawed”.
“Allowing powerful states to get away [with] multi-year, multi-continent torture against so many, feeds impunity for all,” she said on Twitter.
Judges will now review the request.
– ANTHONY DEUTSCH and STEPHANIE VAN DEN BERG; Additional reporting by SIMON LEWIS/Reuters
The UN Human Rights Council held an emergency session last month after the Taliban takeover, but activists said that the Pakistan-led resolution that was adopted was too weak. That text asked UN rights boss Michelle Bachelet to report back, giving her few resources or power.
Bachelet told the forum on 13th September that Taliban had broken promises by ordering women to stay at home and by carrying out house-to-house searches for former foes.
An EU draft resolution circulated at this session, seen by Reuters, condemns executions and violence against protesters and media. If adopted, it would appoint a special rapporteur, but not a full-fledged inquiry.
“We urge Council members, in line with the council’s mandate, to adopt a resolution in this current session establishing a dedicated and effective mechanism to monitor the human rights situation in Afghanistan, a must for accountability and prevention,” Nasir Ahmad Andisha, Afghanistan’s ambassador, still in function, told the Geneva forum.
Activists said that a special rapporteur – independent experts who usually have full-time jobs – would fall short.
“A mere special rapporteur with some assistance from [the UN rights office] is not enough,” Ken Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, told a panel event. “Given the complexity of the country, an investigative mechanism needs a full team, with dedicated resources and a clear mandate.”
Agnes Callamard, secretary-general of Amnesty International who is a former UN investigator on unlawful killings, said that human rights monitoring was “extraordinarily important” now.
“The preservation of evidence is also critical to send a clear message to the Taliban that international crimes do not go unnoticed or unpunished,” she said.
Shaharzad Akbar, chair of the Afghanistan independent human rights commission who has fled the country, said the Taliban has carried out targeting killings mainly against former national security forces and some ordinary citizens.
“They are creating an environment of fear for everyone, including for human rights defenders, women’s rights activists and journalists that are still in the country, most of them in hiding,” she told the panel.
“We have reports of extrajudicial killings of detainees,” she said.
Taliban authorities in the western Afghan city of Herat killed four alleged kidnappers and hung their bodies up in public to deter others, a local government official said on Saturday.
– Additional reporting by EMMA FARGE.
