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As a former official in Afghanistan’s democratically elected authorities, Mustafa* knew that if the Nato-backed administration collapsed he must flee. However like many others, he was unable to take action, and in July final yr fell into Taliban fingers. They threw him inside a small cage with canine inside.
“They captured me, suffocated me by putting a plastic bag on my face and tied my limbs collectively,” he tells The Impartial in a telephone name from Afghanistan. The Taliban accused him of continuous to collaborate with the hardline Islamist authorities’s enemies even after the autumn of Kabul in August 2021 – of their minds, being a insurgent.
When he was lastly taken out of the cage after 30 hours, Mustafa was unable to face and collapsed to the bottom. Over the following 17 months, the Taliban’s jail guards and officers assaulted him with sticks and pipes, he says, and fed him scraps.
He’s one in all 38 interviewees in a brand new physique of analysis by Afghanistan Worldwide, a TV station run by journalists masking the nation from exile. They search to doc allegations of systemic torture and abuse meted out by the Taliban to detainees, and have introduced their findings to the UN particular rapporteur for Afghanistan, Richard Bennett.
The Taliban denies the allegations and claims journalists are welcome to go to its jail services to see situations for themselves, although the Islamist regime has additionally banned media from airing criticism of its insurance policies – a part of what the Committee to Defend Journalists (CPJ) calls “draconian media restrictions… dragging Afghanistan again to the Stone Age”.
In all, Mustafa and the opposite 37 interviewed detainees present oral proof of a minimum of 31 various kinds of torture, typically underneath cowl of darkness and typically lasting as much as 18 hours a day.
Mustafa breaks down as he remembers the situations he was stored in. “You would not lie down inside that cage, and after I pleaded, they hit the cage with sticks and rifle butts, silencing me,” he says. “At that time, I assumed – am I, are different Afghans, lifeless to the world? Do they not see how the Taliban got here and stomped throughout our rights?”
The sorts of torture described within the testimonies shared with The Impartial embrace waterboarding, electrical shocks on personal elements, bodily assault with sticks, immersion in scorching water, nail extraction and suffocation with a bag.
One other interviewee, Farishta*, was accused of offering help to members of an Afghan resistance motion. She says she was crushed for over every week at a Taliban-held intelligence facility in Kabul, by interrogators attempting to get details about resistance fighters. On the sixth evening she says she was taken to a room the place wires had been connected to her toes and he or she was shocked with electrical energy till she misplaced consciousness.
The Taliban launched her from jail after 41 days, citing an absence of proof to detain her. She says the bodily trauma of the ordeal disrupted her menstrual cycle.
The crimes the interviewees are alleged to have dedicated fluctuate, however many revolve round public criticism of the Taliban administration. Not less than 16 detainees, together with six girls, had been accused by the Taliban of inciting riot and mobilising individuals in opposition to the group by utilizing social media, taking part in conferences and discussions, talking to media retailers, and spreading anti-Taliban propaganda. They had been arrested throughout Afghanistan, together with in Kabul.
The Impartial can not independently corroborate all their claims, however has seen pictures purporting to point out accidents inflicted on the prisoners throughout their alleged torture. A number of pictures additionally confirmed shoddily stitched-up wounds on the our bodies of detainees.
Hamidullah*, who the Taliban accused of “inciting riot” in opposition to the brand new regime by organising protests, spent a month in detention. One evening, he says, interrogators walked him to a room, ordered him to be stripped bare and connected weights to his personal elements. He was ordered to face for your complete evening throughout this ordeal.
Hamidullah has visited a urologist 3 times after being free of detention, however has not felt in a position to share any particulars of the horror he suffered together with his spouse and youngsters.
Sayed Jamal, a Kabul resident arrested in Could this yr, informed Afghanistan Worldwide he was accused of being concerned in an explosion carried out by a resistance group referred to as the Afghanistan Freedom Entrance (AFF). “They informed me, ‘You killed our Mujahids, now we’re doing the suitable factor by simply eradicating your nails’,” he says. He was launched in July, and has now fled Afghanistan.
The dates, location and names haven’t been disclosed over fears of reprisal expressed by the previous detainees who’re nonetheless underneath the Taliban’s surveillance and concern rearrest.
Afghan journalists are additionally amongst these interviewed. In Kandahar, Ashraf* says he was detained and informed by the Taliban that they might minimize off his tongue if he didn’t cease talking out within the media. Some detainees say they had been abused on the premise of their alleged connections to overseas media retailers, together with Afghanistan Worldwide itself.
In an announcement to The Impartial, the Taliban’s chief spokesperson, Zabiullah Mujahid, stated there was “no type of torture within the prisons of the Islamic Emirate”, and claimed unspecified “overseas intelligence” organisations had been influencing former detainees in order that they “misread what they noticed in jail and supply false data”.
