The Taliban’s leader has warned that Afghans ungrateful for its hardline rule will be severely punished by God in a statement marking the fourth anniversary of the group’s return to power.
The statement from Haibatullah Akhunzada was made in a social media post on Friday to commemorate “Victory Day”, four years on from the chaotic United States and NATO withdrawal from the country after more than 20 years of war as the Taliban retook the capital, Kabul.
The threat was a stark reminder of the sweeping restrictions and repression of rights, especially of women and girls, that has taken place under the Taliban’s rule, which is based on its strict interpretation of Islamic law.
In his statement, Akhunzada said Afghans had faced hardships for decades in the name of establishing religious law in the country, which he said had saved citizens from “corruption, oppression, usurpation, drugs, theft, robbery and plunder”.
“These are great divine blessings that our people should not forget and, during the commemoration of Victory Day, express great gratitude to Allah Almighty so that the blessings will increase,” his statement said.
“If, against God’s will, we fail to express gratitude for blessings and are ungrateful for them, we will be subjected to the severe punishment of Allah Almighty.”
He also advised government ministers to remove the word “acting” from their job titles, signalling the consolidation of his administration’s rule in the country amid a lack of internal opposition.
Victory Day
Four years on from its return to power, the Taliban government remains largely isolated in the international arena over the severe rights restrictions imposed under its rule although Russia became the first country to officially recognise the Taliban administration in early July.
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It also has close ties with China, the United Arab Emirates and a number of Central Asian states although none of these officially recognises the Taliban administration.
Victory Day parades were planned in several Afghan cities on Friday, and in Kabul, helicopters were scheduled to drop flowers across the city. Photographs of an official ceremony in Kabul to open the commemorations showed a hall filled exclusively with male delegates.
‘An open wound of history’
Rather than celebrating, members of the activist group United Afghan Women’s Movement for Freedom staged an indoor protest in the northeastern province of Takhar against the Taliban’s oppressive rule, The Associated Press news agency reported.
“This day marked the beginning of a black domination that excluded women from work, education and social life,” the group said in a statement to the agency.
“We, the protesting women, remember this day not as a memory, but as an open wound of history, a wound that has not yet healed. The fall of Afghanistan was not the fall of our will. We stand, even in the darkness.”
Afghan women also held an indoor protest in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, the agency reported.
Repression and death threats
The United Nations, foreign governments and human rights groups have condemned the Taliban for their treatment of women and girls, who are banned from most education and work, as well as parks, gyms and travelling without a male guardian.
Inspectors from the Vice and Virtue Ministry require women to wear a chador, a full-body cloak covering the head, while a law announced a year ago ordered women not to sing or recite poetry in public and for their voices and bodies to be “concealed” outside the home.
Last month, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants against Akhunzada and the country’s chief justice on charges of committing gender-based persecution against women and girls.
ICC judges said the Taliban had “severely deprived” girls and women of the rights to education, privacy, family life and the freedoms of movement, expression, thought, conscience and religion.
At least 1.4 million girls have been “deliberately deprived” of their right to an education by the Taliban government, a UN report from August 2024 found.
Among the restrictions imposed on women is a ban on working for nongovernmental groups, among other jobs. A UN report this month revealed that dozens of Afghan women working for the organisation in the country had received direct death threats.
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The report said the Taliban had told the UN mission that its cadres were not responsible for the threats and a Ministry of Interior Affairs investigation is under way. An Interior Ministry spokesman, Abdul Mateen Qani, later told The Associated Press news agency that no threats had been made.
In the meantime, Iran, Pakistan and the US have been sending Afghan refugees back to Taliban rule, where they risk persecution.