Following the Release of the UNAMA Report, the Taliban Summon Officials of This UN Body

Photo: Ariana News

The Taliban’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs says that after the publication of a joint report by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and UNAMA’s Human Rights Office on Taliban reprisals against individuals who have been forcibly returned to Afghanistan, a number of UNAMA officials have been summoned to the ministry.

Zia Ahmad Takal, deputy spokesperson for the Taliban’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, wrote in a post on the social media platform X that this summons was carried out on the orders of the Taliban’s prime minister and after the formation of a commission to review the report. The commission was chaired by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and included the Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, Ministry of Interior Affairs, and General Directorate of Intelligence.

According to Takal, the commission concluded after its review that the UNAMA report “in a limited way” mentioned some positive actions, but “overall, by using wordplay and distorting the facts, it has caused concern among the minds of returned migrants.” He claimed that the report focused more on the “individual experiences of a few” and ignored the experiences of “millions of Afghans who have returned to the country in safety and with dignity.”

Takal also described the use of terms such as “torture, arbitrary arrest, reprisal, and mistreatment” as “politically motivated” and said that these allegations cannot be investigated due to “ambiguity regarding the location, person, and time.” He emphasized that UNAMA officials were told to “seriously review” their reporting methods and warned that if what the Taliban call “similar violations” is repeated, the group will take “appropriate action.”

This comes after UNAMA and the UN Office of Human Rights published a report on July 24 stating that former officials and military personnel of the previous government, women activists, journalists, and civil society activists who have been forcibly returned to Afghanistan have faced serious violations of their human rights, including torture, arbitrary arrest, and threats to their personal security by the Taliban.

According to the report, some former officials and military personnel said that after returning to Afghanistan, they have been forced to live in hiding due to fear of harassment by the Taliban. Others said they were tortured during detention.