Taliban apartheid system - collective punishment of Afghans by Pashtun Taliban

Taliban Leadership Group Photos

Although more than half of the population belong to other ethnicities than ethnic Pashtuns, all leading Taliban members belong to the Pashtun ethnicity. There are a handful symbolic personalities from the other ethnicities, Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara, within the Taliban government.

One form of retaliation by the mainly Pashtun Taliban is collective punishment. Any group which fights or argues against the extremist group gets persecuted. This has been shown in Panjshir Province, where family members of resistance fighters or even ordinary Panjshiris were arrested, tortured or even executed. Other cases of collective punishment and retaliation were reported from other provinces, like Daykundi, where captured Hazara army members were executed by the most horrifying methods. 

The Taliban follows Deobandi tribal rules, which is also called Pashtunwali. Revenge is an unwritten law of Pashtunwali tribal law. Thus dozens, if not hundreds, of former Afghan security personnel or government employees have been killed by extrajudicial executions by that group. Another unwritten law is the oppression of women, which is deeply rooted in Pashtun areas of Afghanistan. This resulted in the banning of Afghan women from studying and work.  

Collective punishment of Afghans has taken place especially in Northern Afghanistan. In Mazar-i-Sharif local inhabitants were threatened with forced relocation in January 2022, after Taliban fighters were attacked by Afghan guerrilla fighters. Civilians were held responsible for the security of Taliban members. Baghlan, an anti-Taliban stronghold in Northern Afghanistan, has been punished by banning the issuing of passports in that province for local inhabitants, although passports are necessary for travelling for health or other reasons. Forced migration of Hazara has taken place in Daykundi Province, where local farmers were thrown out of their homes and their land were confiscated by Pashtun landlords.

Innumerable harassment cases have been reported from across Afghanistan since the violent takeover of the country by the Taliban. Among others cases, secret abductions and murders of Shiites in Kabul and Herat are happening on a daily basis. In Kabul and Herat, were there are large Shiite populations, Shiites with higher education or social standing have been targeted since January 2022 and even before. Many Afghans belonging to the Shiite denomination of Islam have been murdered since the violent coup of the Taliban in Afghanistan, which happened mainly with the help of Pakistani intelligence service ISI.