Rainbow Afghanistan has published a report stating that LGBTQIA+ individuals are being tortured and sexually assaulted in Taliban prisons.
The report shows that over the past three years, at least 98 LGBTQIA+ individuals have been publicly punished on various charges in 14 provinces of Afghanistan.
LGBTQIA+ refers to a range of people with fluid sexual orientations and identities. The Taliban has imposed severe punishments for homosexuality in Afghanistan.
The investigative report, titled “Hidden Crimes”, examines the situation of LGBTQIA+ individuals in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan between 2022 and 2024 and shows that Kabul, Kandahar and Khost recorded the highest number of punishments against these individuals with 15 cases.
“The Taliban regime does not recognise the gender of LGBTQIA+ individuals, so the exact gender identity of those convicted and punished is not known,” the report said.
The report also emphasises that a number of LGBTQIA+ individuals in Afghanistan have faced death threats for rejecting the “sexual desires” of Taliban members, and some of them have disappeared from Taliban detention centres.
In this report, Rainbow Afghanistan interviewed 12 LGBTQIA+ individuals who have been victims of Taliban violence.
Jannat Gul (pseudonym), who spent eight months in a Taliban prison, told the organisation, “The Taliban wanted us to be with them and establish a relationship, and in return they promised money and support in prison. However, after these requests were rejected, they sexually assaulted us. I remember that four people sexually assaulted me in one night.”
“The Taliban decided to make us a lesson for the youth of Herat,” he added. They blackened our faces, paraded us around and stated that we should be punished. They drove us around the city from 11 am to 6 pm.” The organisation also spoke to several men and women from Jalalabad, Herat, Baghlan, Kabul, Balkh and Logar provinces who recounted the Taliban’s mistreatment of LGBTQIA+ individuals.
At the end of its report, Rainbow Afghanistan called for the formation of an international fact-finding committee, diplomatic pressure, monitoring and prosecuting the Taliban, supporting LGBTQIA+ individuals, and recognising sexual and gender apartheid.
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