Afghan envoy warns Taliban ties make human rights abuses look negotiable
Nasir Ahmad Andisha, Afghanistan’s representative to the United Nations Human Rights Council, has warned that governments’ engagement with the Taliban administration as a political or commercial deal sends the message that the group’s record of human rights violations and terrorist activities is open to bargaining.
He made the remarks in an article published today, Friday 23 Asad, on the Just Security website. According to Andisha, whenever a country advances ties with the Taliban administration in the form of a political or commercial exchange, it effectively reinforces the perception that the group’s human rights and terrorism record can be the subject of negotiation.
Andisha stressed that such an approach should not be accepted. He also described the continuing failure of countries to formally recognise the Taliban administration, and the refusal to hand Afghanistan’s seat at the United Nations to the group, as an opportunity for the Afghan people.
According to him, keeping Afghanistan’s UN seat in the hands of an independent representative outside Taliban control has created space for civil society actors, women and opponents of the group to raise their views and demands in international forums.
The UN Human Rights Council is one of the organisation’s main bodies for monitoring and reviewing the human rights situation in different countries, and Afghanistan’s seat at the UN has in recent years become one of the main points of dispute over the Taliban administration’s international legitimacy.
