On the fifth day of the holy month of Ramadan, Matiullah Wesa, an advocate for women’ and girls’s schooling in Afghanistan, went to a neighbourhood mosque in Kabul for asr (night) prayers. Because the 30-year-old left the mosque along with his youthful brother, Samiullah, he was surrounded by a bunch of armed males who mentioned they had been from the Common Directorate of Intelligence, the Taliban’s intelligence unit.
“When my brother Samiullah requested them for his or her IDs, they confirmed their weapons as an alternative and took [Matiullah] away,” Attaullah Wesa, Matiullah’s elder brother, instructed Al Jazeera.
The next morning, 24-year-old Samiullah was additionally detained, together with one other brother, Wali Mohammad, 39, when members of Taliban safety raided their house in Kabul. Attaullah evaded arrest as he went into hiding.
“They beat my brothers and likewise took our units, comparable to telephones and laptops,” mentioned Attaullah, 37, from an undisclosed location.
Matiullah’s arrest on Monday has alarmed activists. The United Nations has referred to as on Taliban authorities to make his whereabouts public and permit him entry to authorized illustration.
“We’re alarmed by the continued arbitrary arrests and detentions of civil society activists and media staff in Afghanistan, specifically the focusing on of those that communicate out towards the de facto authorities’ discriminatory insurance policies limiting girls and ladies’ entry to schooling, work and most different areas of public and every day life,” Jeremy Laurence, the UN Human Rights spokesperson, mentioned in a press release on Wednesday.
Critic of Taliban curbs on ladies’ schooling
Matiullah has been a critic of the Taliban’s restrictions on schooling for women and girls and has repeatedly referred to as for the ban on their schooling to be reversed.
For the reason that Taliban returned to energy in August 2021, excessive colleges for women stay shut, and in December, universities had been made out of bounds for girls as a part of the group’s clampdown on girls’s rights.
“We knew one thing like this may occur eventually,” Attaullah mentioned, referring to Matiullah’s arrest. “If you’re struggling for the elemental rights of the folks, such a consequence is feasible.”
Matiullah has been the face of an schooling organisation referred to as Pen Path, arrange by the Wesa brothers in 2009 to enhance and promote schooling entry throughout Afghanistan, together with in distant areas affected by many years of battle.
The Wesa siblings would journey on motorbikes to the remotest components of the war-torn nation, taking cellular libraries with them, distributing books and campaigning concerning the significance of schooling.
Their arrests, that are seen as being a part of a crackdown on dissenting voices, have provoked criticism from Afghans and the worldwide group.
“The Taliban first began with abusing, abducting and detaining girls protesters,” mentioned Sahar Fetrat, Afghan researcher with the Ladies’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch. “Now they’ve began to intimidate and abuse males for becoming a member of peaceable activism.”
“The Taliban worry Afghan women and men standing collectively and preventing for a greater Afghanistan,” she instructed Al Jazeera.
Arbitrary arrests and detentions
The Wesa brothers are solely the most recent in a collection of arrests made by the Taliban focusing on civil society activists and protesters who’ve spoken out towards the closure of excessive colleges 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 cases of arbitrary arrests and detentions of civil society actors and human rights defenders prior to now three months.
At the very least three girls protesters recognized as Roqiya Sai, Fatima Mohammadi and Malalai Hashemi had been arrested on Sunday after they participated in demonstrations in Kabul demanding the reopening of excessive colleges for women.
The ladies had been launched the next day, however a number of different activists arrested earlier have been held for longer and have alleged torture and abuse by the hands of Taliban officers.
Tamim, one other Afghan activist who requested his title be modified as a result of he fears repercussions from authorities, says he was detained and crushed in custody for attending Worldwide Ladies’s Day celebrations.
“The intelligence officer got here to our home and put a black bag on my head and took me to their division,” Tamim mentioned. “They saved me there for 4 days and in that point didn’t inform my household the place I used to be.”
“I used to be crushed badly and tortured each day,” he mentioned. “They haven’t any mercy.”
Tamim, a outstanding human rights activist because the days of the earlier Western-backed Afghan authorities, shared images 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 knowledgeable of his arrest, however he was held for per week earlier than being launched on bail.
Taliban defends the arrest
Whereas the Taliban has not commented on any of the opposite detentions, senior Taliban chief and spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid did deal with Matiullah Wesa’s case. He instructed native media that Matiullah had been arrested for organising conferences and instigating 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 at Afghanistan’s Ministry of Info and Tradition, for remark however had acquired no response by the point of publication.
Hammad mentioned in a tweet on Wednesday in an obvious reference to Matiullah: “His actions had been suspicious, and the system has the precise to ask such folks for a proof.”
Attaullah mentioned the armed males who raided the Wesa brothers’ household house in Kabul questioned them about their work with Pen Path.
“They had been upset about our campaigns for women’ schooling but additionally interrogated my household concerning the foreigners we often work together with as a part of our advocacy,” he mentioned.
Matiullah had just lately returned from a visit to Europe earlier than his arrest.
“They requested my brother which embassy we’re taking funds from. They had been additionally upset about our use of the Afghan nationwide flag,” Attaullah mentioned, referring to the tricoloured flag adopted by the earlier republic authorities as an alternative of the Taliban’s white flag.
