Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said the group was working to strengthen accountability mechanisms within its security institutions, responding to a new United Nations report that highlighted “serious gaps” in transparency and accountability among the Taliban’s security agencies.
According to IRAF, Mujahid said Taliban security institutions were developing mechanisms to ensure that public complaints were investigated more quickly and thoroughly.
He also stressed that the “current security and stability” was the result of the work of the security forces and said their efforts should not be overlooked.
Mujahid’s comments came a day after the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said in a report that, five years after the change of government in Afghanistan, serious gaps remained in transparency, accountability and the provision of official statistics within the Taliban’s security structure.
UNAMA has repeatedly raised concerns in previous reports about weak oversight within the Taliban’s security institutions.
In its latest report, the U.N. mission said none of the Taliban’s security agencies had provided specific figures on complaints filed over alleged mistreatment by their personnel, while many of the complaints had been left without investigation.
The complaints cited by UNAMA included violent conduct, abuse of power, arbitrary detention and unlawful treatment. The mission said, however, that no information had been made public on how the complaints were investigated or what their final outcomes were.
Fear of retaliation hampers reporting
UNAMA said a significant number of people refrained from filing complaints because they feared retaliation by Taliban forces and lacked guarantees for the safety of complainants.
The U.N. mission said the situation had made it difficult to establish the true scale of misconduct by security personnel, with many cases of alleged mistreatment going unreported.
