Taliban ban UN special rapporteur from entering Afghanistan

De facto government appears desperate to hide evidence of its crimes

Even as the Taliban continue rolling out the welcome mat for social media travel influencers to tour Afghanistan and whitewash the gender apartheid underway there, they are removing travel permissions from those who might hold them to account, including UN special rapporteur Richard Bennett.

On Wednesday, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid told reporters that Bennett was no longer allowed to visit Afghanistan, explaining that he was “spreading propaganda” with his advocacy for the rights of women and minorities inside Afghanistan. Mujahid told Tolo News, a Taliban mouthpiece like all other still-functioning media outlets inside Afghanistan, that UN reporting about the situation for women in Afghanistan had “exaggerate[d] minor issues,” The Independent reported.

Malleable influencers chasing clout might be willing to overlook the Taliban’s crimes in exchange for the chance to go viral, but Bennet has overlooked nothing. In an Aug. 14 press release, Bennett and his fellow rapporteurs “urg[ed] the international community not to normalise the de facto authorities or their human rights violating regime.”  The UN experts particularly noted that “the Taliban’s deliberate subjugation of women and girls is widespread and systematic, amounting to crimes against humanity, including the crime of gender persecution.”

Bennett also likely provoked the Taliban’s ire when stating his intent to investigate reports, including video, of women being raped in Taliban prisons. It is clear that this investigation would be difficult to accomplish without traveling to Afghanistan to investigate Taliban prisons firsthand.

In addition to looking in on Afghans detained in Taliban prisons, international leaders should seek access to Westerners held by the Taliban. This includes three Americans, Mahmood Habibi, George Glezmann, and Ryan Corbett, who are detained in abhorrent conditions and face serious mental and physical health difficulties. The Taliban only acknowledge holding Corbett and Glezmann in their custody, with Mujahid telling Taliban mouthpiece Ariana News that “we don’t have anyone named Habibi in our prisons.” The State Department has stated in recent weeks that it is concerned about Habibi’s detention, while the FBI has openly acknowledged it is investigating Habibi’s disappearance.

A source connected to Habibi’s case, who agreed to speak on condition of anonymity, said that “if the Taliban wants to move in the direction of being the recognized government of Afghanistan…then they need to be responsive when foreign citizens are arrested there. There is no doubt that the GDI arrested Mahmood and 30 other people from the same company, yet the Taliban have not provided any accounting of that arrest, where Mahmood was held and for how long, and when we was moved from the GDI detention facility and to where.”

On Aug. 17, still another new but familiar terror was unleashed upon the women of Afghanistan when news emerged that the Taliban had sentenced a woman in Balkh province to death by stoning. The woman’s alleged crime is having an extramarital affair. It appears that her affair partner will only face a “punishment order.”

Stonings were practiced during the Taliban’s prior regime. Their use today represents an escalation from the 136 public floggings that Afghan women have been subjected to since the Taliban’s takeover. In response to the Taliban’s March announcement that they would institute stonings once more, Sahar Fetrat of Human Rights Watch told the Guardian that the Taliban “tested their draconian policies one by one, and have reached this point because there is no one to hold them accountable for the abuses.”

In the three years since the Taliban ascended to power in Kabul, they have made public assurances of their moderation in policy while privately tightening their grip on the populace and instituting the same rulings that made them a pariah state during their prior regime. The Taliban’s travel ban against Bennett only serves to show how very much the group is desperate to hide. It is long past time for the international community to catch on to the deception.

Beth Bailey (@BWBailey85) is a freelance contributor to Fox News Digital, and opinion contributor to the Washington Examiner, and the host of The Afghanistan Project, which takes a deep dive into nearly two decades of war and the tragedy wrought in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan.