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Human Rights Watch Calls For UN Investigation Of Taliban Massacre

In a detailed report Human Rights Watch called upon the United Nation Commissioner for Human Rights to launch an immediate, full-scale investigation into the Taliban’s summary execution of hundreds of civilians in central Afghanistan in January. Most of the civilians murdered by the Taliban were members of the Hazara ethnic group.

Eyewitnesses told Human Rights Watch of men being rounded up by soldiers and taken to a relief office in Nayak where most were executed. Other witnesses told of seeing piles of bodies and mass graves at various places in the Yawkalang province. The report states, “ethnic and religious minorities, and the Hazaras in particular, have been especially vulnerable in areas of conflict, and Taliban forces have committed large-scale abuses against Hazara civilians with impunity.”

“The Feminist Majority Foundation joins with Human Rights Watch calling for an immediate and full investigation of the execution of Afghan civilians. The Taliban’s brutal rule of gender apartheid and genocide violates international humanitarian and human rights laws. The world cannot just stand by while these atrocities continue,” says Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation.

Sources:

Massacres of Hazaras in Afghanistan - Human Rights Watch 19 February 2001, The New York Times 19 February 2001, Washington Post 19 February 2001, Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, Global Feminist News Wire

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