Hazara children protest the Taliban genocide of the Hazara and other Shia Muslims in Afghanistan
Report on Ten Stages of Genocide Against Hazaras and Other Shia Religious Minorities in Afghanistan By Raziya Masumi
Genocide Watch
December 1, 2023
Methodology
This report is based on interviews that Raziya Masumi of Genocide Watch personally conducted with victims and eyewitnesses of the Taliban’s crimes against Hazaras and Shia religious minorities. Genocide Watch has also received images that depict torture and killing of Shia civilians that cannot be published online.
Conclusion
The Taliban have committed genocide and the most serious crimes against humanity in Afghanistan against Hazara and other Shia religious minorities. The Taliban have violated the Genocide Convention. They have also committed crimes against humanity in violation of Articles 6 and 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. The Taliban have violated the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
The U.N. Security Council should refer the situation in Afghanistan to the International Criminal Court (I.C.C.). Taliban leaders should be charged and tried by the I.C.C. for their crimes. Nations with universal jurisdiction should also investigate, charge, and try Taliban leaders for their crimes.
Suicide attack on Kaaj educational center killed at least 68 Hazara girls / Photo credit MurtazaKhademi See Report on The Girls of Kaaj by Raziya Masumi, Genocide Watch..
Analysis
The findings will be analyzed with the Ten Stages of Genocide model used by Genocide Watch, conceived by Dr. Gregory Stanton, Founding President of Genocide Watch. The Ten Stage model is the most powerful model for predicting and preventing genocides. It is used by the U.N., many governments, and by genocide scholars around the world. The model has predicted every genocide since 1989. It was first published in the U.S. State Department in 1996. No statistical risk model equals it in predicting when, how, and why genocide will occur because it is a processual, event-driven, and evidence-based model rather than an annual statistical risk model created from abstract variables.
I. Classification
The first stage of the genocidal process is classification. People are classified by ethnic group, religion, race, nationality, language, or other characteristics. Classification is present in every culture and in every language - indeed linguists consider it one of the two fundamental poles of language.1 Classification does not cause genocide. But when it is combined with discrimination or dehumanization, classification divides societies. In divided societies, this process identifies members of a group as either "us" or "them." It is a necessary condition for genocide.
The Taliban distinguish Hazaras and Shia religious minorities from other groups in Afghanistan. The Taliban do not recognize Shia Islam as a legitimate religion. The Taliban authorities have announced many times that the only accepted religion in Afghanistan is Sunni Islam. Hanafi, Hazara, Sadat, Qezelbash, and Ismaili religious groups are not accepted.2 The Taliban plan is to abolish all Shia religious activities in Afghanistan.
This exclusionary ideology targets young boys who are studying at schools under the Taliban regime. According to eyewitnesses, Taliban police search schools and ask students how they pray. Based on their answers, the Taliban target Shia children and subject those children to beatings. These dehumanizing tactics often force Shia children to leave school.
The Taliban also classify Shia religious minority groups according to their language, Dari, a ‘Persian’ language. The Taliban do not recognize Persian languages. The only language permitted in Afghan schools and official communications is the Pashto language.3 1 Roman Jakobson and Halle,Morris (1956) Two Aspects of Language and Two Types of Aphasic Disturbances in Fundamentals of Language. The Hague & Paris: Mouton.
2 https://euaa.europa.eu/country-guidance-afghanistan-2023/3142-individuals-hazara-ethnicity-and-other- shias 3 https://thediplomat.com/2023/08/decoding-the-talibans-anti-persianism/
Taliban removed "Persian" words from banners at universities in BalkhProvince. Photo Source:Social Media
II. Symbolization
Symbolization is the second process in the development of genocide. Like Classification, it is universal and does not necessarily lead to genocide. Symbolization adds the second fundamental operation of all languages: combination (syntax). Symbolization connects words and other symbols to classifications. It provides names for groups. It may also denote physical symbols, such as dress, that identify members of a group. Sometimes the symbols are imposed by rulers who target groups they plan to attack. The yellow star that Jews were forced to wear by the Nazis is the most famous example of symbolization.
Every religious or ethnic group has its own symbols which define and characterize its religion and culture. Shia religious symbols and traditions include flags and signs that proclaim the names of their Imams. Shia religious ceremonies include rituals during Ashura. Shia religious rituals include the ways Shia say prayers. Shia architectural structures, their mosques, provide settings for the practice of Shia religion. Shia schools, medical facilities, and markets are distinctive places where Shia people gather.
ISIS-KP has targeted many Shia mosques. ISIS-KP has attacked maternity hospitals and schools in western Kabul, where many Shia Hazaras live.4 According to an inhabitant of western Kabul interviewed for this report:
Taliban soldiers remove a banner from a religious ceremony of Shias during Ashura. Photo Source:Social Media Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44pZESlRibw 4 https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/10/25/afghanistan-surge-islamic-state-attacks-shia The Hazara woman continued: “This is a nightmare for us because we cannot practice our religion in a peaceful and secure area.” History repeats itself, as descendants of Hindus and Sikhs who fled from Pakistan to Afghanistan at the time of India's partition are now fleeing Afghanistan because of the increase in terrorist attacks against them.5 III. Discrimination
The third stage of the genocidal process is Discrimination. By law, custom, or organized campaigns, an ethnic or religious group is denied its civil rights. It may be forbidden to hold public office or positions in the civil service or universities. Members of the group may be stripped of their citizenship and denied the right to vote. Members of a pariah group may be forbidden to marry members of the dominant group. They may be barred from use of parks, restaurants, and public facilities. They may only live in segregated ghettos. Examples of discrimination were the Nuremberg Laws that expelled Jews from universities and government jobs and restricted their rights to marry in Nazi Germany.
The Taliban have developed discriminatory policies against Hazaras and Shias. They prevent Hazaras from working in the government.6 The Taliban prohibit Hazaras from joining together in social gatherings. The Taliban have forced Hazaras to close their private schools, educational centers, and libraries.7
Official Taliban communications never mention Hazaras and Shia minorities. The Taliban have announced that their government is for the benefit of the Pashtun ethnic group. 8 Taliban leaders speak only Pashto in media and public places. They humiliate Persian speakers who send them letters or speak to them in Dari. The Taliban forbid public cultural expression by Persian speaking communities. 9 They have removed all pictures and books of renowned Hazara and Persian poets and philosophers from universities and schools. 10
The Taliban attacked a Hazara crowd gathered for the religious ritual of Ashura. Photo Source:Social Media Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44pZESlRibw
5 https://www.voanews.com/a/extremism-watch_sikhs-and-hindus-afghanistan-limbo-after-march-deadly- attack/6188647.html
6 https://extremism.gwu.edu/risks-facing-hazaras-in-taliban-ruled-afghanistan 7 https://minorityrights.org/minorities/hazaras/ 8 https://www.rferl.org/a/1098593.html 9 https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/6/6/the-keeper-of-afghanistans-poetic-past 10 https://8am.media/eng/2022/09/21/https-8am-af-eng-talibans-controversies-on-persian-words-continue/ A Hazara eyewitness from one of the schools under Taliban control told me that Taliban officials monitor schools. They force schools to teach topics only in Pashto. Taliban authorities search classrooms and ask students questions in the Pashto language. When the students cannot respond in Pashto, Taliban authorities humiliate and insult them. This discriminatory Taliban harassment of children of Dari/Persian speaking communities has driven many Hazara children to stop attending school.
IV. Dehumanization
Dehumanization is a driving force in every genocide. The perpetrators convince the general population that their victims are not fully human. They call them "vermin", "cockroaches", "cancers", "scum", "filth", "infections", or "disease-bearers." Propagandists call the victims "invaders," "rapists", or "criminals." Their "otherness" is denoted by terms like "foreigners", "terrorists", "illegal aliens", "infidels", "heretics", or "devil worshipers."
One reason why dehumanization is a process in every genocide is that it relieves murderers of guilt or shame for killing non-human beings. Indeed,many genocidists believe they are doing good. They are "cleansing" their society, "disinfecting" it, "purifying" it. They are ridding their country of "invaders" or "illegal aliens". They are defending the true religion. The Taliban dehumanize Shias.The Taliban falsely accuse Hazaras of crimes. They arrest, imprison, and execute them. The Taliban dehumanize Shias by spreading propaganda throughout society.
According to a young boy’s testimony from Kabul, the Taliban refers to Shias as “dirty creatures” that must be punished.The young boy added that he hides his religion, the Sadat Shia religion, when he is at school. He said that the Taliban single out Hazaras based on their appearance and facial features and separate them from others in society.
Serajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban's acting minister of interior affairs, broadcast a widely circulated audio file to social media that describes Shias as “the most dangerous people in the world.”11 He added that all Shias are liars. He accused Shias of not believing in the Quran and Islam. He emphasized that Shias are not true Muslims. He added that Shias are worse than Jews and they must be destroyed. His language is reminiscent of the dehumanizing propaganda that the Nazis inflicted on Jews during the Holocaust.12
Serajuddin Haqqani the minister of Interior Affairs for the Taliban said: "Shias are worse than Jews and Christians. They must be destroyed." Photo Source: Social Media Haqqani is a war criminal who should be indicted and tried by the I.C.C. or tried in a country with universal jurisdiction for his crimes in violation of the Geneva Conventions, crimes against humanity under the I.C.C. Statute, and acts of genocide prohibited by the Genocide Convention. 11 https://www.ecoi.net/en/file/local/2086870/20230207-Hazara-and-Shia-under-Taleban-FINAL.pdf 12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vu9tmbjBY14 13 https://www.isas.nus.edu.sg/papers/the-haqqani-network-and-indias-afghan-dilemma/
The Taliban executed over 150 Hazara Shias in Balkhab District, Bamyan Province in 2022. The Taliban would not permit proper Islamic burial of their bodies. Credit: Jade-Abresham(Silk Way)Weekly
V. Organization
Organization is essential to genocide because it is a group, not an individual, crime. The crime is not genocide when a deranged individual with an AR-15 commits a mass shooting. Genocide is a planned group crime, that often includes multiple massacres of people because of their group identity. Usually, genocide is committed by the military of a nation-state or by state-supported militias. It can also be committed by a terrorist organization like Al Qaeda or ISIS.
The Taliban organize their secret police to spy on, arrest, and torture Hazaras and Shia minorities. The Taliban arrest, imprison, and murder Hazara boys and men. They force Hazara women and girls to wear suffocating burqas and forbid them to work outside their homes.
The Taliban run a vast nationwide prison system where torture is routine.
One of the victims who was arrested by Taliban soldiers and who spent two months in prison, told me the following story:
“I was living with my cousins in a shared place in Kabul. One day, Taliban soldiers invaded our house and searched every room. Two of them pointed their guns at us. One of the soldiers demanded that we take off all our clothes so that they could strip-search us. I was shocked and told them, “It is not possible." The other soldier attacked me and beat me up. They forced us to take off our clothes.
I have a tattoo on my right arm that says ‘Mother’ because I Iost my mother when I was three years old. When the soldiers saw my tattoo, they called me ‘Evil’ and ‘Infidel’ and ‘Dirty Creature’. They beat me more than eighty times. I was so terrified that afterwards, I couldn’t feel or see anything.
They forced me and my cousins into a car and took us to prison. I spent two months in confinement. Every afternoon the soldier who was responsible for beating prisoners and torturing them came to my cell. He beat me by kicking my stomach. He stopped giving us water. When we wanted food, they urinated on it.
One day, the head of the prison came to us and ordered us to write a letter confessing that we were ashamed about our appearance and our religion. He forced us to write, "We are delivered from evil. We will become clean human beings after spending time in the Taliban Islamic Emirate prison.”
According to statements made by many prisoners under the Taliban regime, the Taliban use an array of torture tactics against them.
Taliban threw acid on the hand of a boy who had a tattoo on it. Source:Social Media VI. Polarization
Polarization is the process by which moderates who may be neutral are exposed and forcibly recruited into membership in genocidal organizations or they are driven out of a society. The logic of extremism is, "If you're not with us, you're against us."
Polarization is necessary for genocide because moderates from the perpetrator's own group are best able to prevent a genocide. That is why the first people the Nazis arrested were not Jews. The first people sent to Dachau were liberal German priests and pastors and German socialists and communists who opposed Hitler.
In Rwanda, the first people to be murdered were moderate Hutus who served in the Rwandan government, like the Hutu Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana and the Hutu President of the Constitutional Court, Dr. Joseph Kavaruganda.
Polarization divides the population so that moderates cannot oppose the leaders of the genocide. If they do oppose the genocidists, they are arrested and imprisoned or murdered.
The Taliban terrorize the population into perpetual fear of being arrested and imprisoned. The Taliban divide their opponents according to the following classifications:
1- Freedom fighters
The Taliban punish those who fight against their ideology and government. The Taliban accuse them of the crime of “Moharebah” which is an Arabic word that means “enemy against God”.
The Taliban believe that their government is representative of God’s authority in Afghanistan. Consequently, any opposition to their government equals hostility against God.
Taliban gunmen in Panjshir murdered at least 20 peaceful civilian protesters. Credit: The Guardian/ Getty Images
2- Ethnic minorities
Hazaras and other ethnic minorities in the central provinces are often arrested by the Taliban.The Taliban arrest young Hazara boys, torture Hazara men, and rape and kill Hazara women and girls.The Taliban have tortured and killed hundreds of Hazaras in the Daikundi, Ghazni, and Saripol provinces.
3- People who wear jeans, have tattoos,or who do not wear beards
The Taliban arrest and punish older boys and men who do not have beards. The Taliban whip and torture them.
One of the victims who escaped from a Taliban prison told me this story:
“One day, the Taliban arrested me and my friends on the street and took us to prison. One of their soldiers started beating us. The soldier said that our appearance without a beard is Haram (forbidden) under the Islamic Emirate regime.
He accused us of being anti-Islam. Every day at least twenty Taliban soldiers spat on us. They insulted and humiliated us. I have very bad feelings whenever I remember those dark memories. They burned all our clothes. They didn’t give us new clothes. Instead, we were forced to wear rags.” A barber shared his story: “The Taliban soldiers inspected all shops and barbershops. One day, one of them came into my barbershop and asked me why I displayed pictures of men with different hairstyles on the wall. He asked me if I was a Muslim and if I knew that the pictures are Haram in Islam.
I was shocked and couldn’t even speak to them.
More of them came into my shop and started beating us. One of them yelled at me with hate and anger in his voice that the Taliban have carried out jihad (a struggle or fight against the enemies of Islam) over the past decades to stop people like us.
He added that I must be ashamed of what I had done. He slapped my face more than ten times and my nose and mouth started to bleed.The other soldier brought a whip and started beating me.
I only saw darkness around me and couldn’t open my eyes because they were swollen shut in pain.
One of them kicked me in my right kidney.
Then they broke everything I had in the shop and shattered all the windows and glasses. They kicked me outside the shop and put a red line on my shop’s door.
One of my neighbors saw me and called my family members. My father came and took me to the hospital.
I lost one of my kidneys.”
Taliban Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice cut hair of man on street as punishment. Photo Source: Social Media 4- Activists and Journalists
Since they came back into power, the Taliban have targeted and arrested women’s rights activists and journalists. The Taliban have arrested the following activists: Zarifa Yaqoobi, Farhat Popalzai, and Humaira Yusuf.
An anonymous women’s rights activist who was imprisoned by the Taliban explained how the Taliban treat women in prison. She said:
“The soldier who was responsible for us came every day and talked to us. The soldiers told the women that they must confess that they have betrayed the Islamic Emirate. He said that this betrayal is an unforgivable crime.
The commander of the soldiers wrote an apology letter and we were forced to read and sign it."
The woman said that she was held in a tiny cell with her three-year-old daughter. Other women were also imprisoned with their children. The Taliban soldiers threatened the women by saying they will take their children away from them.
"Every night the soldiers came and picked a single woman to rape. Every night one soldier was ordered to scare women and children. He shouted at us, insulted us, and beat the prison walls with a metal truncheon. He made a lot of noise. Our children screamed with fear.
My daughter still has nightmares every night. She screams while she is sleeping. She remembers those dark memories.
The soldiers didn’t give us water. They sometimes withheld water from us for three days straight. Our children cried and begged us for water. [The Taliban soldiers] had no mercy for the children.
I sometimes thought to myself that I would never be free again.”
One of the journalists who was arrested by the Taliban also described his experiences in prison. A Taliban detective whipped him every day. He added that:
“Their detective threatened to kill my wife and children. They tied my hands and feet and carved a line on my body with a knife. Some days, they heated a metal baton and held it on my back to burn me.
I can’t believe that I am still alive after the vicious torture in the Taliban prison.”
An Afghan journalist who was arrested and tortured by the Taliban. Photo Source:Social Media
VII. Preparation
Every genocide is planned. Genocide does not consist of random acts of violence. The Genocide Convention defines genocide as the "intentional destruction of a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, in whole or in part".
To be convicted of genocide, a person accused of genocide must have been aware, or should have been aware, that his actions were part of planned or organized killings or other acts of genocide against members of a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.
The discriminatory policies of the Taliban against the Hazaras are evidence of their hatred against Hazaras.
Many Hazaras have been forced to leave Afghanistan by Taliban soldiers who take their land and their houses.
One eyewitness who lived in the Dehdana district in Kabul explained that she had to take her son for medical treatment to Pakistan and after she came back, she saw that a Taliban soldier had invaded and stolen her house.
When she complained to the Taliban soldier, he responded, “This house was empty. No one was living here. The Islamic Emirate has ownership of all empty houses in Kabul.”
Taliban seize houses from Hazara, confiscate their crops and animals, and force them to flee their villages. Credit: Radio Free Europe
She told the soldier, “Here is my property. I am the owner of this house and I have documents.” In response, the soldier threatened to kill her entire family and burn their corpses in the house if she continued to protest. She had no option but to flee from her house.
Taliban leaders move their soldiers and their families into city centers and steal people’s personal property. The soldiers especially steal property that belongs to Shia families. The Taliban have also moved their families into all empty governmental buildings.
In their formal regulations, the Taliban do not acknowledge any ethnic or religious minorities because they believe that the only true citizens of Afghanistan are Pashtuns.
According to eyewitness testimonies, the Taliban have promulgated corrupt governmental policies. For example, they increased the cost for accessing identification documents. One Shia scholar explained that the Taliban now refuse to stamp or verify Shia marriage certificates.
This Preparation indicates that the Taliban are already preparing to exclude Shias from Afghanistan. They have already begun to enforce this policy and to forcibly displace and deport Hazaras.
Another eyewitness explained that the Taliban change the names of Shia children who attend schools. This is a way to further disrespect the Shias’ religious culture and to actually change the ethnic identity of Hazara children.
Forcibly kidnapping or changing identities of children is a violation of Article 2 (e) of the Genocide Convention.
One student’s father went to the Office of Registration of Population to get a new Tazkira (Identity Card) for his son. He explained his story:
“The Taliban religious leaders changed my son’s Shia name. His teacher beat him and insulted him in front of his classmates because of his Shia name.
I must follow up with the administration until the Taliban allow my son to return to school again with his Shia name.
Shias have no freedom in Afghanistan. The Taliban treat us inhumanely. It is very difficult for us to live in this situation.”
The Taliban’s discriminatory policies towards Hazaras and other minority groups make it highly likely that Taliban violence against ethnic and religious minorities will continue.
Taliban forced Hazaras to leave their properties in Daikundi province. Photo Credit: Hossain Atash VIII. Persecution
Persecution is the culmination of the earlier processes of genocide. Targeted groups are driven out of their homes into ghettoes, or into refugee camps or Internally Displaced Persons camps.
They are cut off from their livelihoods and sources of food. Their land and houses are confiscated without compensation. They are barred from voting, from positions in government, from health care, and from education.
Afghan rulers have carried out mass killings of Hazaras for over a century. The Iron Emir Abdur Rahman Khan who unified Afghanistan in the 1890's, slaughtered sixty percent of the Hazara population.
The Taliban target mosques, educational centers, maternity hospitals, and Hazara social gatherings.
In August 1998, the Taliban massacred over 8000 Shia Hazaras in Mazar-I-Sharif in northern Afghanistan. The Taliban also murdered hundreds of Hazaras in Bamyan, where they blew up two huge rock-cut statues of Buddha.
Even under the U.S. supported non-Taliban war-time government, suicide attacks against Hazaras by the Taliban, Haqqani Network, and ISIS-KP continued.
Since the Taliban have re-taken power, Hazara and other Shia people have experienced regular massacres and other acts of genocide.
The Taliban committed war crimes and acts of genocide against the Shia Hazara population in Balkhab district, Bamyan Province in 2022. They executed 150 civilians after they were subjected to prolonged torture. The Taliban refused to allow the survivors to give their dead proper Islamic burials.
The Taliban soldiers then danced in the Balkhab Shia mosques and seminaries as a sign of disrespect for the Hazara people they had murdered. Photos of the victims' bodies show severe signs of torture, such as gouged out eyes and amputated body parts.
Photos and videos also show Taliban soldiers raping women and girls. Mass rape is a common tactic in genocide and is recognized as an act of genocide in international law (ICTR: Akeyesu case.) The Taliban routinely use mass rape against Shia women and girls.
A family member of a girl who was forced to marry a Taliban soldier told me:
“The Taliban invaded our house in the west of Kabul. The head soldiers came and asked me where the girl was. I was shocked and scared. He told me to bring the girl because they were there to conduct her marriage ceremony with a soldier.
The soldiers said to the father of the girl that if he disagreed, the soldiers would rape his daughter and his wife. The soldiers told him that he had to force his daughter to get married immediately. They started beating me and they broke one of my legs.
Our daughter is a victim of the Taliban’s crimes. I have no news about where she is now. What is she doing? Maybe she has committed suicide.”
IX. Extermination
Extermination is the stage of genocide when lawyers who do not understand genocide finally become willing to call the crime by its proper name: GENOCIDE. Many lawyers think that only mass killing constitutes genocide. Many also think that to be genocide, the intent of the perpetrators must be to destroy a whole group, not just part of a group.
Most lawyers haven't read the Genocide Convention14. They ignore the fact that the Convention lists four other acts of genocide:
Article 2 of the Convention defines genocide as: ... any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
Article 3 defines the crimes that can be punished under the convention: (a) Genocide; (b) Conspiracy to commit genocide; (c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide; (d) Attempt to commit genocide; (e) Complicity in genocide. The Taliban have committed and are committing every one of these acts of genocide.
Hazara mothers mourn deaths of their sons in Hazara boys' school bombing in Afghanistan...credit - Reuters
Denial begins in the earliest stages of every genocide and continues long after the genocide is over.
The perpetrators deny they committed any crime.
They discount the statistics.
They say the truth-tellers are motivated by allegiance to enemies.
They claim the deaths were inadvertent.
They say the victims were really invaders or foreigners.
They say the deaths were the results of war.
They say that it was really a civil war, not a genocide, as though the two are mutually exclusive.
They blame out-of-control rogue forces for the killings.
They blame the victims.
They say the victims were a traitorous force determined to destroy the nation or the true religion from within.
The lawyers say the killings don't fit the legal definition of genocide.
The lawyers say there is not enough proof of the "specific intent" to commit genocide.
They say that current economic or political relations with the perpetrators outweigh punishing them for genocide.
They say that peace and reconciliation are more important than trying the perpetrators and preventing genocide. The Taliban deny that they have committed any crimes against civilians, especially minority groups, in Afghanistan. The Taliban believe that killing civilians who do not comply with their policies and beliefs is legal.
Zabiullah Mujahid, the spokesperson of the Taliban, joined in a religious summit of Shia leaders to give the false impression that the Taliban respect Shias. Photo Source: Social Media
The same Taliban leaders who organized support for the Al-Qaeda terrorist group have emphasized many times that they will punish those who oppose the Islamic Emirate.
According to the Taliban’s official policies, anyone who has a different religion is “Mahdur-ul-dam,” which is an Arabic term that means “it is allowed to shed their blood.”16
There are no signs that the Taliban will stop their genocide and crimes against humanity against Hazaras and Shias. If the current Taliban genocide worsens, there is a grave risk that the genocide against minorities in Afghanistan will spill over into Pakistan where Hazaras and other non-Sunni Muslims also live. The Taliban pretend that the situation in Afghanistan is "normal." The Taliban claim to have eliminated crime and war. Promoters of fundamentalist Wahhabist Islamist monarchies like Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates would like the West's democracies to look the other way while they become the Middle East's authoritarian power brokers.
Meanwhile the Taliban starve their people, commit genocide against the Hazaras and other Shia Muslims, and destroy the educational and other human rights of all Afghan women and girls. 15 https://www.genocidewatch.com/twelve-ways-to-deny-genocide
Much of the West would like to believe that after tiring of their war against the Taliban and their abandonment of Afghanistan, they can now ignore Afghanistan.
The U.S., U.K., NATO and the U.N. hope that somehow the Afghan people will eventually overthrow Taliban tyranny.
The Taliban must be resisted and overthrown by the Afghan people.
But the West offers almost no support, even for Afghan groups that non-violently resist Taliban tyranny.
Meanwhile how many lives will be lost? How many children's futures will be destroyed?
If genocide and tyranny are "normal," the future of the world is even darker than pessimists and "realists" think.
The conclusion of this report is that the Taliban continue to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Hazaras and other Shia people.
The situation in Afghanistan should be referred to the International Criminal Court.
The leaders of the Taliban must be tried for their crimes.
I hope that the eyewitness testimonies featured in this report will help to shine a light on the truth about the Taliban genocide in Afghanistan.
Creative Commons Copyright 2023 Raziya Masumi and Genocide Watch, Inc.