During a CNN interview on Tuesday, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, announced that the Biden administration would be responding to threats from the Taliban with a “strongly worded press statement.”
“The U.N. Secretary-General is saying that they’re already getting – and I’m quoting him now – ‘chilling reports of mounting human rights violations against the women and girls of Afghanistan,’” CNN’s Wolf Blitzer said. “What specifically are you learning about those threats?
“We are hearing from people in Afghanistan that they are getting threats from the Taliban,” Thomas-Greenfield responded. “And we have expressed, in no uncertain terms, here at the United Nations through a very strongly worded press statement from the Security Council, that we expect the Taliban to respect human rights, including the rights of women and girls. We have also indicated that they have to be respectful of humanitarian law, and that we do not expect to see that Afghanistan will become a safe haven for terrorists. But again, it is not their words that we will hold them to, it is their actions that we will be watching.”
???????? Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield says U.S. expressed "in no uncertain terms" at the United Nations through "a very strongly worded press statement" from the Security Council that "we expect the Taliban to respect women's rights" and "to be respectful of humanitarian law." pic.twitter.com/32TEyRFu4O
— Hillel Neuer (@HillelNeuer) August 18, 2021
The “strongly worded” statement will be issued to combat the Taliban’s human rights violations, including public executions of women who are not wearing a burqa or civilians who are suspected of assisting the U.S. government.
In one city, the Taliban killed 44 people after taking over in mid-July. The Wall Street Journal reported, “Those killed were supporters of a family that controlled the border crossing and ran a pro-government militia, the rights group said. Videos shared by pro-Taliban accounts on social media showed a fighter with a machine gun shooting bound prisoners by the side of a road.”
“In many newly conquered areas, the Taliban have imposed harsh restrictions on the movement of women, not allowing them to leave the house without male relatives and mandating that they wear the all-enveloping burqa, according to local residents reached by phone,” the Wall Street Journal added. “A man who fled Badakhshan province, in the northeast, said the Taliban had told his village that women weren’t to leave home without male chaperones. Men were ordered to go to the mosque for prayers five times a day. Families with more than one man were required to provide one to fight with the militants, he said.”
