The Taliban’s reclusive emir has lashed out at foreign demands on his government, as the UN rights chief called for an end to “systematic oppression” of women in the country.
The group’s supreme leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, made a rare public speech to thousands of clerics at an all-male gathering to discuss Afghanistan’s future.
He travelled from his Kandahar base to Kabul for the address, the first time he is known to have made that trip since the Taliban seized the Afghan capital last August.
The cleric, who has never been filmed and is rarely photographed, effectively ruled out an inclusive government that could have drawn members from ranks of the Taliban’s former opponents and made no mention at all of women or girls.
He described the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan as a “victory for Muslims around the world”, even though his government has not been recognised by any Muslim-majority country and many Muslim clerics inside and outside Afghanistan have denounced its harsher edicts.
The meeting was closed to media but in an audio recording of the speech Akhundzada, a hardliner whose son was a suicide bomber, warned the international community against interfering in Afghanistan.
“Thank God, we are now an independent country. [Foreigners] should not give us their orders, it is our system and we have our own decisions,” he said, according to the official Bakhtar news agency.
Diplomats from around the world have warned the Taliban they must broaden their government and lift the most extreme controls on women’s lives if they want official recognition of their government.
Girls in Afghanistan are now barred from secondary education, and women are blocked from working in most sectors outside health and education, require a male guardian for long-distance travel and have been ordered to cover their faces in public.
Michelle Bachelet, the UN human rights chief, said on Friday that Afghan women and girls faced a “desperate situation”.
Since the Taliban returned to power they “are experiencing the most significant and rapid rollback in enjoyment of their rights across the board in decades”, she told the UN human rights council in Geneva.
She urged the Taliban to look to other Muslim-majority countries, none of which bar girls from education, for a template to get girls back to school.
Universities and primary schools remain open to female students, albeit in strictly segregated classes, and the Taliban leadership has repeatedly emphasised the need for female doctors, teachers and nurses. Many senior Taliban officials send their own daughters to school.
But plans to reopen girls’ secondary schools in March were abruptly cancelled at the last minute. The Taliban, who have repeatedly acknowledged that women have a right to education under Islam, have never given a clear explanation for the closures.
Analysts suggested the male clerics gathered in Kabul may debate the reopening of girls’ schools, a subject that has divided the Taliban movement itself. Ahead of the gathering, the acting deputy prime minister said men would speak for women “because we respect them a lot”.
Women’s education is one of many issues that have caused fissures in the Taliban movement. The dominance of Taliban leaders who are ethnic Pashtuns in government has caused frustration across Afghanistan and fears it could fuel another round of civil war.
Akhundzada effectively ruled out any inclusive government, saying that while officials from the former government should not fear reprisals, “forgiveness does not mean to bring them to the government”.
Though that could leave the door open for Taliban opponents who had stayed out of politics, many significant community leaders had some kind of official role under the former presidents Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani.
A narrow government may not only be a liability in the search for international support – the Taliban are already battling armed uprisings in the Panjshir valley and, more recently, northern Sar-e Pul province.
In Sar-e Pul, a rebel former Taliban – one of the few commanders recruited from the ethnic Hazara community – has turned against the leadership. There have been reports of brutal killings of civilians in the campaign to crush his rebellion, drawing condemnations from human rights groups.
“Amnesty International is gravely concerned by reports of summary executions and harm to civilians in Balkhab district of Sar-e Pul province,” the group said in a statement.
“As the de facto authorities in Afghanistan, the Taliban has a primary responsibility to end the attacks against civilians and ensure justice and accountability.”
