The Taliban recently tortured and killed members of the Hazara ethnic minority in Afghanistan, according to Amnesty International.
“Most of the Hazara are Shi’ite Muslims, whom Sunni hardliners like the Taliban abhor,” Reuters reported. According to the BBC, they have faced “long-term discrimination and persecution” in Afghanistan, where they are the third-largest ethnic group, and Pakistan.
Amnesty said it has received “harrowing” accounts from witnesses, who say the killings took place in July in Ghazni province.
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Nine Hazara men reportedly died, six of whom were shot and three tortured to death. One had his arm muscles sliced off and another had his legs and arms broken and his hair pulled out. One of the victim’s chests was reportedly so riddled with bullets that he had to be buried in pieces.
When challenged by onlookers, a Taliban fighter said: “When it is the time of conflict, everyone dies, it doesn’t matter if you have guns or not. It is the time of war.”
Amnesty’s secretary-general, Agnes Callamard, said the “targeted killings” are “proof that ethnic and religious minorities remain at particular risk under Taliban rule in Afghanistan”.
With mobile phone services cut in many of the regions captured by the Taliban, information about the killings last month has not emerged until now. Amnesty has called on the United Nations to investigate and protect those at risk.
According to legend, the Hazara are descendants of Genghis Khan and his soldiers, who invaded Afghanistan in the 13th century.
The news of the attacks comes after several people were killed in the eastern city of Asadabad when Taliban fighters fired on people waving the national flag at a rally.
The New York Times said the rally was “a remarkable display of defiance, coming just a day after violence broke out at protests in two other cities, with Taliban members shooting into crowds and beating demonstrators”.
Meanwhile, Sky News reported that the Taliban has started “rounding up a blacklist of Afghans who worked with the fallen government, or American and British forces, and is threatening them with Sharia punishment”.
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