The UN special envoy on the human rights situation in Afghanistan has been barred from entering the country, a diplomatic source told AFP on Tuesday.
A diplomatic source confirmed to AFP that “Richard Bennett was informed of the decision several months ago that he would not be welcome to return to Afghanistan,” after local media quoted a Taliban government spokesman as reporting the ban.
Bennett completed two years in the position on May 1.
Since returning to power in August 2021, Taliban authorities have imposed rules based on a strict interpretation of Islamic law.
Women have borne the brunt of restrictions that the United Nations has labeled “gender apartheid”, which have seen them excluded from public life.
They are denied secondary and higher education, as well as barred from working in many jobs, entering public parks, gyms, and traveling without a male relative.
The Taliban government has not yet been recognised by any other country, and its restrictions on women are a major issue.
Taliban officials have systematically rejected criticism of their policies by the United Nations and the international community.
However, according to diplomatic sources, when the ban was issued months ago, the Taliban government stressed that their issue was not with human rights monitoring and reporting, but with Bennett personally.
Earlier on Tuesday, Afghanistan’s Tolo News quoted Zabihullah Mujahid, the chief spokesman for the Taliban government, as saying Bennett had been banned “because he was appointed to spread propaganda in Afghanistan and he is not someone we can trust”.
“They took small issues and exaggerated them for publicity,” he said.
– Strong statements –
In recent months, Bennett has issued strong statements on women’s rights in Afghanistan at a time when the country was in the international spotlight.
Last week, as Taliban authorities marked the third anniversary of their takeover of Afghanistan, Bennett issued a statement along with 29 other UN experts urging the international community “not to normalise the de facto authorities or their horrific human rights violations”.
In late June, Bennett condemned the decision to keep rights issues off the agenda at UN-hosted talks in Qatar and to exclude Afghan women and civil society representatives from the negotiating table — a condition for the presence of Taliban representatives at meetings with the international community.
“It costs too much,” he wrote in an article in The New York Times.
In New York, Stephane Dujarric, a spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, did not confirm or deny the ban on Tuesday but said: “Special rapporteurs play a very important role in the global human rights architecture. We encourage full cooperation with them.”
Special rapporteurs like Bennett are independent experts from the Special Procedures Body of the UN Human Rights Council, based in Geneva.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) carries out human rights monitoring and reporting in the country.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)