Zabihullah Mujahid

Ayaz Gul
VOA News
August 21, 2024

ISLAMABAD — Afghanistan’s de facto Taliban leaders have barred the United Nations-appointed special rapporteur on human rights, Richard Bennett, from entering the country for allegedly “spreading propaganda.”

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid disclosed the decision to Afghan broadcaster TOLO News late Tuesday. He accused the U.N. envoy of misrepresenting “the ground realities” in the country and providing “misleading” information to the global community.

Bennett reports to the U.N. Human Rights Council based in Geneva and has conducted several trips to Kabul to investigate the Afghan human rights situation since assuming duties in 2022 — a year after the radical Taliban returned to power.

“Mr. Bennett’s travel to Afghanistan has been prohibited because he was assigned to spread propaganda in Afghanistan. He is not someone we trust … He used to exaggerate minor issues and propagate them,” Mujahid stated.

Neither the U.N. Human Rights Council nor Bennett has immediately commented on the reported travel ban facing him.

The U.N. human rights rapporteur, in one of his recently published assessments, highlighted the Taliban’s sweeping curbs on Afghan women’s access to education, employment, and public life at large, demanding they be immediately reversed.

Bennett alleged that women and girls under Taliban rule “are being persecuted based on gender, calling it a crime against humanity. He went on to assert that the institutionalized, systematic, and widespread nature justifies it being framed as “gender apartheid.”

Mujahid dismissed the U.N. findings and subsequent statements by Bennett as propaganda, saying the Taliban respect women’s rights in line with their interpretation of Islamic law and Afghan customs.

The Agence France-Presse news agency quoted a diplomatic source as confirming the ban on the U.N. rapporteur and saying that Bennett “was informed of the decision that he would not be welcome to return to Afghanistan several months ago.”

“Even after repeatedly requesting Mr. Bennett to adhere to professionalism during work … it was decided that … his reports are based on prejudices and anecdotes detrimental to interests of Afghanistan and the Afghan people,” Taliban foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi told the Reuters news agency.

Taliban officials do not respond to VOA queries because they have imposed a ban on the media outlet.

De facto fundamentalist Afghan authorities have barred girls ages 12 and older from attending school and women from many public and private sector workplaces, including the U.N.

In addition, women are not allowed to undertake road trips beyond 78 kilometers without a male guardian, and they are barred from visiting parks, gyms, and public baths.

“The Taliban barring Bennett from entering the country is one of many signs that their crackdown on human rights, especially the rights of women and girls, is ongoing and continuing to deepen,” Heather Barr, the associate women’s rights director at Human Rights Watch, told VOA.

“The international community — and the U.N.—should respond to this provocation by the Taliban by committing to never discussing the future of Afghanistan without women on the agenda and at the table,” she said in her comments shared via email.

The Taliban attended a U.N.-organized meeting in Doha last month for the first time, where they interacted with envoys from more than two dozen countries on matters related to Afghanistan’s economic and humanitarian challenges.

The U.N. did not invite Afghan women or human rights representatives, however, citing the Taliban’s opposition, a move that drew strong criticism of the world body.

No country has officially recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government since they seized control of Afghanistan in 2021, mainly citing the harsh treatment of women and girls.

Many top Taliban leaders remain under international terrorism sanctions, and the Afghan banking sector is largely isolated from the rest of the world, with about $9 billion in central bank assets being frozen in the U.S. and European banks.