The United Nations human rights chief says a new Taliban decree in Afghanistan is set to expand the death penalty and deepen repression particularly targeting basic freedoms and women’s rights in a development human rights advocates warn could make conditions even harsher across the war‑torn country. Volker Türk the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights told the Human Rights Council in Geneva that the decree signed last month by Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada defines new crimes and punishments that ‘contravene Afghanistan’s international legal obligations’ including allowing corporal punishment for numerous offences even within the home and expanding the number of acts punishable by death. Türk said the decree also criminalises criticism of the de facto leadership and its policies a move that violates fundamental freedoms of expression and assembly and stifles dissent. The full text of the decree has yet to be published by the Taliban’s justice ministry or courts but the U.N. rights office says its expected to come into force soon and could further entrench restrictions on women and girls who have already been barred from secondary and higher education and face severe limits on movement employment and civic participation under previous edicts. The U.N. chief urged the Taliban to rescind the decree impose a moratorium on executions and end corporal punishment warning that the measures risk legitimising violence against vulnerable groups and deepen an already oppressive system that he likened to gender apartheid. Taliban officials have characterised women’s rights as an internal matter that should be addressed locally even as international pressure mounts to roll back the widening crackdown.
