Taliban Mark Five Years in Power as UN Warns of Rights Crisis

Taliban leaders and officials gathered at the Loya Jirga hall in Kabul on Saturday to mark five years since their return to power, framing the anniversary as a triumph of stability after decades of conflict. The event drew thousands of ordinary citizens and some foreign representatives, with speeches hailing what they described as Afghanistan's liberation from American forces. No women were present at the ceremony.

Celebrations extended to provinces across the country, where Taliban flags and posters praising the movement's resurgence lined major roads and marketplaces. Deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat said during the ceremony, "We pray to Almighty God to forever protect our homeland from occupation, aggression, wars, and insecurity, and to enable our people to enjoy peace, tranquility, and prosperity under the auspices of the Sharia-based government."

However, the anniversary was met with a stark warning from the international community. Richard Bennett, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, said in a video message that the country is undergoing a deep human rights crisis. "While the era of war has ended, it's questionable whether there's real peace, and the human rights situation has steadily deteriorated, most dramatically for women and girls," Bennett said. He added that his mandate has concluded the system "amounts to the crime against humanity of gender persecution."

Bennett detailed a broader pattern of abuses, including arbitrary arrests, torture, extrajudicial killings, enforced disappearances, restrictions on freedom of expression, and attacks on journalists and human rights defenders. He urged the international community not to "normalize" the Taliban's policies, warning that doing so would legitimize discrimination and tell victims their suffering is negotiable.

The Taliban seized power on August 15, 2021, as US and NATO troops withdrew after a costly two-decade war. Since then, the administration has banned girls from education beyond the sixth grade and barred women from higher education, public spaces like gyms and parks, and travel without a male guardian. UNESCO estimates that some 2.4 million girls have been excluded from secondary education.

UN Women said this week that women and girls face the harshest restrictions in the world, with the bans threatening Afghanistan's social and economic foundations due to a lack of teachers, doctors, and nurses. The Taliban government remains internationally isolated, with Russia being the only country to have formally recognized it. In an interview this week, deputy minister Molvi Hayatullah Mahajar Farahi touted the administration's achievements in security and infrastructure but did not address the issue of girls' education.