SW News: In a recent publication by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), it was reported that more than 200 former Afghan soldiers and officials have been killed extrajudicially since August 2021 when the Taliban took over the country.

According to the research, between August 15, 2021, and June 30, 2023, the de facto authorities allegedly conducted 218 extrajudicial killings, 14 enforced disappearances, over 144 acts of torture and ill-treatment, and 424 arbitrary arrests and detentions of whom they think were collaborators with the American troops.

Meanwhile, UN human rights chief Volker Turk said that going after former officials is a betrayal of the people's trust, despite the fact that the Taliban promised a universal amnesty for all former government officials and members of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces after seizing power.

The study underlines that Afghanistan is still a party to international human rights treaties that prohibit the aforementioned crimes and that former members of the democratically elected government have the same rights as all other Afghans.

Several victims revealed beatings with pipes and wires, verbal threats, and torture at the hands of de facto security force agents in interviews, and UNAMA also heard from family members whose loved ones had been imprisoned or kidnapped and subsequently discovered dead.

Alia Azizi, a former warden of the Herat Women's Prison, disappeared on October 2, 2021, and no one has seen or heard from her since then. Despite the fact that Taliban authorities have "opened an investigation" into her abduction, UNAMA is still unaware of her whereabouts.

According to UNAMA, despite the start of many probes, progress remains opaque and devoid of accountability, with impunity ruling supreme. Its Director Roza Otunbayeva said that the de facto authorities must show a true commitment to universal amnesty in order to provide significant opportunities for justice, reconciliation, and peace in the nation.

After 20 years of Western occupation, the Taliban eventually gained control of Afghanistan. As hundreds of panicked Afghans and foreigners rushed to Kabul airport to catch the last plane out, the US-trained and supported Afghan army collapsed.

Despite claims that they are more lenient rulers than they were in the late 1990s, the Taliban have enforced their strict interpretation of Islamic law by making it illegal for women to continue their education beyond the sixth grade and prohibiting women in Afghanistan from holding public office or working for NGOs or the United Nations.