UN records hundreds of killings and rights violations by Taliban
The Taliban have carried out hundreds of human rights violations in Afghanistan since seizing power last year, the United Nations said , including extra judicial killings and torture.
"There's no denying that the findings of our report are extremely serious," Markus Potzel, acting head of the United Nations mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), told a news conference in Kabul.
The Taliban have routinely denied accusations of rights abuses since overthrowing the previous Western-backed government, but a UNAMA report released listed multiple accounts.
It documented 160 allegations of extra judicial killings, 56 incidents of torture and ill treatment and more than 170 arbitrary arrests and detentions against former government officials and national security force members since August.
It documented more than 200 instances of cruel, inhuman or degrading punishments -- including beating shopkeepers for not attending mosque -- and more than 100 cases of excessive use of force.
Since the end of the war, security has vastly improved across the country with a huge drop in civilian casualties.
UNAMA had 87 reports of violence against women and girls including murder, rape, suicide, forced marriages including child marriage, assault and battery, as well as two cases of honour killing -- none of which have been registered with the formal justice system.
