Rights groups slam severe Taliban restrictions on Afghan women as ‘crime against humanity’

By RAHIM FAIEZ
Associated Press

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Two top rights groups say the severe restrictions imposed on women and girls by the Taliban in Afghanistan amount to gender-based persecution, which is a crime against humanity. Amnesty International and the International Commission for Jurists on Friday released a new report that highlights how the Taliban crackdown on Afghan women’s rights, coupled with “imprisonment, enforced disappearance, torture and other ill-treatment” could constitute gender persecution under the International Criminal Court. They called upon the international community to take swift legal action against the Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan in mid-August 2021 as U.S. and NATO troops were in the last weeks of their withdrawal from the country after two decades of war.