Afghanistan: Information on house-to-house searches by the Taliban in the province of Maidan in January 1995 killing all Hazara men and raping and kidnapping the women

Information on the above-mentioned topic could not be found among the sources consulted by the DIRB. Please note that Maidan is not a province but a city located 25 kilometers southwest of Kabul. Refered to as Maydanshahr or Maidan-Shahr, it is located in Wardak province. According to the attached map from Olivier Roy's book Afghanistan: From Holy War to Civil War, the Hazara community can be found in the provinces of Bamiyan, Parwan, Wardak and in the city of Maydanshahr.

The DIRB could not find any reports about a massacre perpetrated by the Talibans against the Hazara community in Maydanshahr in January 1995. The attached articles from the Agence France-Presse (4 Feb. 1995) and Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran Network (5 Feb. 1995) outline that Maydanshahr was taken over by the Taliban in February 1995.

An April 1995 Amnesty International Report states that

In recent months, dozens of prisoners have received punishments including execution and amputation ordered by Islamic courts set up in areas controlled by the Taleban in Afghanistan. Several men have been executed in Taleban-controlled areas on charges of murder. At least three men have had their hands and feet chopped off on charges of theft. Several Hezb-e Wahdat leaders have died in the custody of the Taleban in circumstances which raise concern that they may have been killed deliberately and arbitrarily; and 22 corpses discovered in a mass grave in Charasyab in March were believed to have been the bodies of prisoners allegedly killed by the Taleban (1).

The report also mentions that the Taleban

emerged as a strong military and political force in November 1994 when they captured the city of Kandahar from the Mujahideen groups. They reportedly have full control over at least nine of Afghanistan's 30 provinces, by far the largest number of provinces controlled by a single armed political group. The Taleban's most significant advance was the capture in February 1995 of Maydan Shahr (ibid.).

Finally, the report adds that "the Taleban have claimed that poppy cultivation, looting, abducion and rape of women and children — reportedly so characteristic of the previous Mujahideen rulers — have now stopped in the Taleban-controlled areas" (ibid., 2).

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1995 reports that

While the Taliban were generally acknowledged to have been more successful than other factions in restoring peace and order to areas under their control, they also were reputed to enforce strict Islamic punishments in areas that they controlled — public executions, amputations of hand and feet for theft, and restricting women's rights by preventing them from working and girls from attending schools (1996, 1288).

The report also adds that

In March Abdul Ali Mazari, the leader of an anti-Rabbani Shi'a faction, was killed while in the custody of the Taliban. The Taliban carried out public executions of purportedly corrupt officials in certain areas they controlled. In March a mass grave with 22 bodies was found south of Kabul; 20 of the deceased were Shi'a Muslims of the Hazara ethnic minority. They apparently were killed execution style with ther hands tied behind their backs and bullets fired into their heads. It was unclear who was responsible for the Shi'a deaths (ibid.).

For additional information on the recent events in Afghanistan, please consult the attached articles.

This Response was prepared after researching publicly accessible information currently available to the DIRB within time constraints. This Response is not, and does not purport to be, conclusive as to the merit of any particular claim to refugee status or asylum.

References

Agence France Presse. 4 February 1995. Hervé Clerc. "New Religious Movement Has Kabul in Its Sights." (NEXIS)

Amnesty International (AI). April 1995. "Afghanistan: Executions, amputations, and possible deliberate and arbitrary killings." (AI Index: ASA 11/05/95). London: Amnesty International.

Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for 1995. 1996. United States Department of State. Washington, DC: United States Government Printing Office.

Roy, Olivier. 1995. Afghanistan: From Holy War to Civil War. Princeton, NJ: The Darwin Press, n.p.

Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran Network [Tehran, in Persian]. 5 February 1995. "Internal Affairs; Religious Students Continue Advance Towards Kabul." (BBC Summary 7 Feb. 1995/NEXIS)

Attachments

Agence France Presse. 4 February 1995. Hervé Clerc. "New Religious Movement Has Kabul in Its Sights." (NEXIS)

Amnesty International (AI). 16 March 1995. "Afghanistan: Amnesty International Condemns Deliberate and Arbitrary Killings, Torture and Rape." (AI Index: ASA 11/WU 01/95). London: Amnesty International.

Asian Survey [Berkeley, CA]. February 1996. Vol. 36, No. 2. Zalmay Khalilzad. "Afghanistan in 1995: Civil War and a Mini-Great Game," pp. 190-95.

Asiaweek [London]. 3 March 1995. "Afghanistan: The Rise of the Taliban," pp. 26-27.

The Women's Watch [Minneapolis]. April 1996. Vol. 9, No. 4. "Human Rights," p. 4.

Roy, Olivier. 1995. Afghanistan: From Holy War to Civil War. Princeton, NJ: The Darwin Press, n.p.

Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran Network [Tehran, in Persian]. 5 February 1995. "Internal Affairs; Religious Students Continue Advance Towards Kabul." (BBC Summary 7 Feb. 1995/NEXIS)