On the fifth day of the holy month of Ramadan, Matiullah Wesa, an advocate for training for women and girls in Afghanistan, went to a neighborhood mosque in Kabul for asr (night) prayers. Because the 30-year-old left the mosque together with his youthful brother, Samiullah, he was surrounded by a gaggle of armed males who mentioned they got here from the Taliban’s Common Directorate of Intelligence.
“When my brother Samiullah requested them for his or her ID, they as a substitute confirmed their weapons and took (Matiullah) with them,” Attaullah Wesa, Matiullah’s older brother, advised Al Jazeera.
The following morning, Samiullah, 24, was additionally detained together with one other brother, Wali Mohammad, 39, when members of Taliban safety raided their dwelling in Kabul. Attaullah escaped arrest when he went into hiding.
“They beat my brothers and in addition took our gadgets reminiscent of telephones and laptops,” Attaullah, 37, mentioned from an undisclosed location.
Matiullah’s arrest on Monday has alarmed activists. The United Nations has referred to as on Taliban authorities to reveal his whereabouts and permit him entry to authorized illustration.
“We’re alarmed by the continued arbitrary arrests and detentions of civil society activists and media employees in Afghanistan, significantly these focused by those that converse out towards de facto authorities’ discriminatory insurance policies that prohibit girls’s and ladies’ entry to training. , work and most different areas of public and every day life,” UN human rights spokesman Jeremy Laurence mentioned in an announcement Wednesday.
Matiullah Wesa interacting with college students as a part of his training marketing campaign in Spin Boldak district of southern Kandahar province final Might. (Siddiqullah Khan/AP photograph)
Taliban critic slams ladies’ training
Matiullah has been a critic of Taliban restrictions on training for women and girls and has repeatedly referred to as for the ban on their training to be reversed.
Because the Taliban’s return to energy in August 2021, secondary faculties for women stay closed and universities have been banned from girls in December as a part of the group’s combat towards girls’s rights.
“We knew one thing like this could occur eventually,” Attaullah mentioned, referring to Matiullah’s arrest. “In the event you combat for folks’s basic rights, such a consequence is feasible.”
Matiullah has been the face of an training group referred to as Pen Path, based by the Wesa brothers in 2009 to enhance and promote entry to training all through Afghanistan, together with in distant areas affected by many years of battle.
The Wesa siblings traveled on bikes to the remotest components of the war-torn nation, carrying cellular libraries, distributing books and campaigning on the significance of training.
Their arrests, seen as a part of the crackdown on dissent, have drawn criticism from Afghans and the worldwide neighborhood.
“The Taliban first began abusing, kidnapping and detaining feminine protesters,” mentioned Sahar Fetrat, an Afghan researcher with Human Rights Watch’s Ladies’s Rights Division. “Now they’ve began harassing and abusing males who be part of peaceable activism.”
“The Taliban are afraid of Afghan women and men preventing collectively for a greater Afghanistan,” she advised Al Jazeera.
Afghan girls and ladies protest a ban on ladies’ faculties in Kabul on March 26, 2022 (Mohammed Shoaib Amin/AP Picture)
Arbitrary arrests and detentions
The Wesa brothers are simply the most recent in a collection of arrests by the Taliban focusing on civil society activists and protesters who’ve spoken out towards the closure of secondary faculties and universities for women and girls within the nation.
In its most up-to-date quarterly report, launched in February, the UN Help Mission in Afghanistan documented 28 circumstances of arbitrary arrests and detentions of civil society actors and human rights defenders over the previous three months.
At the least three feminine protesters, recognized as Roqiya Sai, Fatima Mohammadi and Malalai Hashemi, have been arrested on Sunday after collaborating in demonstrations in Kabul demanding ladies’ secondary faculties reopen.
The ladies have been launched the subsequent day, however a number of different activists arrested earlier have been detained longer and allegedly tortured and ill-treated by Taliban officers.
Tamim, one other Afghan activist who has requested his identify be modified as a result of he fears repercussions from the authorities, says he was detained and overwhelmed for attending Worldwide Ladies’s Day celebrations.
“The intelligence officer got here to our home and put a black bag over my head and took me to their unit,” Tamim mentioned. “They stored me there for 4 days and through that point they did not inform my household the place I used to be.”
“I used to be severely overwhelmed and tortured every single day,” he mentioned. “They know no mercy.”
Tamim, a distinguished human rights activist for the reason that days of the earlier Western-backed Afghan authorities, shared photographs of his accidents with Al Jazeera. “Even speaking to you about it now brings tears to my eyes,” he mentioned.
Tamim’s household was finally notified of his arrest, however he was held for every week earlier than being launched on bail.
On this photograph, taken on Might 17, 2022, Matiullah Wesa, head of Pen Path and an advocate for women’ training in Afghanistan, speaks to kids throughout a lesson subsequent to his cellular library in Spin Boldak district of Kandahar province (Sanaullah Seiam/AFP )
Taliban defends the arrest
Whereas the Taliban has not commented on the opposite arrests, senior Taliban chief and spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid has mentioned Matiullah Wesa’s case. He advised native media that Matiullah had been arrested for organizing rallies and inciting the general public towards the Taliban system.
In one other interview with the Voice of America, Mujahid accused the Wesa brothers of “unlawful actions” with out offering any particulars.
Al Jazeera reached out to Abdul Haq Hammad, the director of publications for the Afghan Ministry of Data and Tradition, for remark, however had not obtained a response on the time of publication.
Hammad mentioned in a tweet on Wednesday in a transparent reference to Matiullah: “His actions have been suspicious and the system has the appropriate to ask such folks for explanations.”
Attaullah mentioned the gunmen who raided the Wesa household’s dwelling in Kabul questioned them about their work with Pen Path.
“They have been indignant about our campaigns for women’ training, but in addition questioned my household concerning the foreigners we work together with frequently as a part of our advocacy efforts,” he mentioned.
Matiullah had lately returned from a visit to Europe earlier than his arrest.
‘They requested my brother from which embassy we get cash. They have been additionally indignant about our use of the Afghan nationwide flag,” Attaullah mentioned, referring to the tricolor flag adopted by the earlier republic authorities as a substitute of the Taliban’s white flag.