April 14, 1998

Kabul a "ghost town" because of police reign: UN Tue 14 Apr 98 - 19:59 GMT
GENEVA, April 14 (AFP) - Kabul is now a ghost town because people dare not venture onto the streets for fear of being harassed by the Taliban's Moslem religious police, the United Nations Human Rights Commission said here Tuesday.

A report condemned "in the strongest terms" all extrajudicial, summary and arbitrary executions, armed hostilities causing massive loss of life, and all forms of torture, as well in particular all killings that had taken place in northern Afghanistan.

Noting that Afghanistan's human rights situation had deteriorated further last year, the UN report stressed the oppression of women and malnutrition of children under the fundamentalist Islamic regime.

Kabul was now virtually a "ghost town," the report said: "The fear of both men and women of being stopped or harassed by the religious police coupled with the drastic reduction in purchasing power of the population as a result of the disastrous economic situation have rendered the city streets practically deserted in the middle of the day."

Shopkeepers found in their stores at prayer time had been beaten by religious police, with punishments for some offences of up to 40 lashes.

"The infringements of women's rights in Afhganistan are such that they pose serious threats to their enjoyment of even the most basic rights, including the right to life, particularly in areas controlled by the Taliban movement where women continued to be denied access to education and employment," the UN report continued.

On the denial of education to girls by the Taliban rulers, the Special Rapporteur said the president of the supreme court in Kabul had told him female education must be limited because "women should not be exposed to evil through education."

Because there were several military frontlines and the authorities were unable to collect taxes or pay salaries, "the issue of female education and employment could not be dealt with at present," the court president had said.

The report noted that the suicide rate among women was on the increase in Kabul.

Prisoners-of-war were ill-treated, their detention conditions were inhuman and sometimes no distinction was made in the administration of criminal justice between political prisoners, prisoners-of-war and those detained on religious grounds.

The report by Special Rapporteur Choong-Hyun Paik, who visited Afghanistan in December, said the continuing absence of central power and the intensifying fighting in Afhganistan, with anarchy and chaos in some regions had all contributed heavily to a deterioration in the situation.

It proposed that a neutral investigating team seek new evidence in the north of the country to determine the extent of the alleged atrocities perpetrated and the number of victims.