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UN report claims Afghanistan’s morality police are violating human rights
According to the report, the ministry has enforced decrees that have a disproportionate impact on women and girls, like dress codes, segregated education and employment, and having a male guardian when they travel.
The UN said Tuesday the ministry for the propagation of virtue and prevention of vice were violating human rights and fundamental freedoms and that decrees and methods used to enforce rules were contributing to “a climate of fear and intimidation among segments” of society in Afghanistan.
The report, titled ‘De Facto Authorities’ Moral Oversight in Afghanistan: Impacts on Human Rights’ was published Tuesday and also contained the Islamic Emirate’s response to the UN’s findings.
The report stated: “As part of this engagement, Afghanistan’s de facto authorities were invited to provide factual comments on the content of the report.”
According to the report, the ministry has enforced decrees that have a disproportionate impact on women and girls, like dress codes, segregated education and employment, and having a male guardian when they travel.
“The punishments attached to non-compliance with instructions and decrees are often arbitrary, severe and disproportionate,” the report read.
“Sweeping bans with a discriminatory effect on women have been introduced. Human rights violations, as well as the unpredictability of enforcement measures, contribute to a climate of fear and intimidation among segments of the population,” the report stated.
UNAMA said it had recorded at least 1,033 instances between August 2021 and March 2024 where ministry employees “applied force during the implementation of instructions, resulting in violations of the liberty, and physical and mental integrity” of people.
The IEA responded by saying the decrees issued by the supreme leader lay “the foundation of the formal documents that are based on Islamic sources. It is a widely recognized principle in all common regimes that decrees and relevant legal documents are issued to reform society and should have their implementation ensured.”
UNAMA also stated that the use of corporal punishment was a violation of the prohibition on torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment.
The organization added that the requirement for women to travel with a mahram (male guardian) beyond 78 kilometers from their home limits their right to freedom of movement and creates financial and logistical barriers for them to access employment and healthcare.
In response to this, the Islamic Emirate said the presence of mahram with a woman “is not only an Islamic value; it is also a cultural value.”
“A woman encounters criticism from the general public when she travels without a mahram. It is frowned upon in Afghan society for women to travel without a mahram.”
The IEA added that Islam also “specifies a certain distance for a woman to be accompanied by a mahram when she travels. To this end, the mahram’s presence with a woman serves to safeguard her honor and chastity.”
The report meanwhile stated that since the ministry’s establishment, its scope of responsibility has continued to expand. “In addition to intensifying monitoring of compliance with existing policies, it has introduced new instructions and expanded into new areas of enforcement,” UNAMA stated.
These areas include monitoring of the media, the eradication of drug addiction, policing of gold dealers, regulating businesses and dispute mediation between individuals, among others.
The Islamic Emirate in turn said “acts are seen as either legal or illegal,” and that the ministry was a key organization within the Islamic Emirate’s governing framework and that its “role is growing as required by the situation”.
However, Fiona Frazer, the head of UNAMA’s Human Rights Service said: “Given the multiple issues outlined in the report, the position expressed by the de facto authorities that this oversight will be increasing and expanding gives cause for significant concern for all Afghans, especially women and girls.”
Overall, the ministry rejected the UN report, calling its findings false and contradictory.
“Decrees and relevant legal documents are issued to reform society and should have their implementation ensured,” the ministry said.
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The Embassy of Japan in Afghanistan announced on Friday that the country has allocated $19.5 million in humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.
In a statement, the Japanese Embassy said it hopes the aid will help bring positive change to the lives of vulnerable Afghans.
According to the statement, the assistance will cover the basic humanitarian needs of vulnerable communities in Afghanistan.
The embassy added that the aid will be delivered through United Nations agencies, international organizations, and Japanese non-governmental organizations operating in Afghanistan.
Japan’s total assistance to Afghanistan since August 2021 has reached more than $549 million.
Security forces at the Islam Qala border in Herat province prevented hundreds of young Afghans from illegally entering Iran.
Officials from the 207 Al-Farooq Army Corps said that around 530 people attempted over the past two days to illegally enter Iranian territory through areas of Kohsan district in Herat, but border forces detained them and transferred them back to their original areas.
Meanwhile, some sources said that a group of 70 people who were heading to Iran on Wednesday through areas of Kohsan district became stranded amid cold weather and snowfall, resulting in the deaths of two of them.
Sources at the Islam Qala border in Herat also confirmed that in recent days hundreds of people have illegally entered Iranian territory through areas of Kohsan district, and that due to severe cold and heavy snowfall, five of them have lost their lives.
President Donald Trump suspended the green card lottery program on Thursday that allowed the suspect in the Brown University and MIT shootings to come to the United States.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said in a post on the social platform X that, at Trump’s direction, she is ordering the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services to pause the program, the Associated Press reported.
“This heinous individual should never have been allowed in our country,” she said of the suspect, Portuguese national Claudio Neves Valente.
Neves Valente, 48, is suspected in the shootings at Brown University that killed two students and wounded nine others, and the killing of an MIT professor. He was found dead Thursday evening from a self-inflicted gunshot wound, officials said.
Neves Valente had studied at Brown on a student visa beginning in 2000, according to an affidavit from a Providence police detective. In 2017, he was issued a diversity immigrant visa and months later obtained legal permanent residence status, according to the affidavit. It was not immediately clear where he was between taking a leave of absence from the school in 2001 and getting the visa in 2017.
The diversity visa program makes up to 50,000 green cards available each year by lottery to people from countries that are little represented in the U.S., many of them in Africa. The lottery was created by Congress, and the move is almost certain to invite legal challenges.
Nearly 20 million people applied for the 2025 visa lottery, with more than 131,000 selected when including spouses with the winners. After winning, they must undergo vetting to win admission to the United States. Portuguese citizens won only 38 slots.
Lottery winners are invited to apply for a green card. They are interviewed at consulates and subject to the same requirements and vetting as other green-card applicants.
Trump has long opposed the diversity visa lottery. Noem’s announcement is the latest example of using tragedy to advance immigration policy goals. After an Afghan man was identified as the gunman in a fatal attack on National Guard members in November, Trump’s administration imposed sweeping rules against immigration from Afghanistan and other counties.
While pursuing mass deportation, Trump has sought to limit or eliminate avenues to legal immigration. He has not been deterred if they are enshrined in law, like the diversity visa lottery, or the Constitution, as with a right to citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil. The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear his challenge to birthright citizenship.
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