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Download letter Dear Excellencies, We, the undersigned Afghanistan and international human rights and civil society organisations, write to you once again to share our concerns regarding the grave human rights and humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and to reiterate the urgent need for accountability for gross, widespread and systematic human rights violations and abuses that continue to be committed across Afghanistan, including crimes under international law, some of which may amount to crimes against humanity. We call on the UN Human Rights Council, at its upcoming 57th regular session to: renew and strengthen with the necessary resources, the mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan; establish a parallel and complementary independent mechanism to investigate, collect, consolidate, preserve and analyse evidence of human rights violations and abuses and crimes under international law; and ensure continuation of a dedicated space for enhanced interactive dialogue on the situation of women and girls in Afghanistan with meaningful follow-up to the report of the Special Rapporteur on Taliban’s repression against women and girls. We further urge you to seriously consider the calls for the recognition and codification of gender apartheid as a crime under international law. This letter, just as in our previous letter shared ahead of the 54th session of the Council in September 2023, is an outcome of consultations with Afghanistan’s civil society and human rights defenders located inside and outside of the country and enjoys broad support from Afghanistan’s civil society. In the past three years, the Taliban have completely reversed measures previously adopted to enhance the promotion and protection of human rights in Afghanistan. The Taliban, as the de facto authority, have spurned Afghanistan’s international obligations and have continued to introduce arbitrary, unlawful and wide-ranging restrictions on human rights. With bans on secondary and higher education, employment, freedom of movement, women’s faces and voices in public, and other rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as access to essential services, women and girls are being erased from society According to the report of the Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan, in the months between June 2023 and March 2024 alone, the de facto authorities issued over 52 new edicts that impose further restrictions the rights of women and girls, effectively consolidating an institutionalised system of gender persecution, which is a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. According to the Special Rapporteur’s report and the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls, the situation of human rights in Afghanistan with respect to women and girls is tantamount to “an institutionalized framework of gender apartheid”. The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has documented 1033 instances of use of  force by the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (MPVPV) , with a view to implementing arbitrary and unlawful restrictions on the human rights of women and girls. Moreover, women and girls belonging to minority communities and LGBTQI+ people continue to experience multiple layers of discrimination. Marginalisation and exclusion of religious and ethnic minorities in Afghanistan has been compounded under the Taliban. Religious communities, including Shias, Ismailis, Sikhs and Hindus, are banned from organising or participating in their religious and cultural ceremonies. Amid the deepening humanitarian and economic crises, the Taliban’s restrictions on women’s right to work have obstructed the monitoring of aid deliveries, notably to women-headed households and groups in vulnerable situations. Additionally, threats against minorities, in particular ethnic minorities like Hazaras, are further exacerbated by targeted attacks by armed groups, such as Islamic State of Khurasan Province (ISKP) operating in the country. LGBTQI+ people face compounded exclusion as well, and face unlawful detention, extortion, torture and killing. All forms of dissent and criticism of the Taliban result in harsh, arbitrary punishment and violent reprisals. Peaceful protestors, in particular women who protest the Taliban’s policies, human rights defenders, civil society activists, journalists, artists, musicians, judges, lawyers, educators, critics, and others continue to be targeted. They have been threatened, arrested, and subjected to arbitrary detention and as well as torture and other ill-treatment. Former government and security officials have been subjected to extrajudicial, arbitrary, and summary killings as well as mass executions and enforced disappearances. The Taliban have also carried out cruel and inhumane punishments including public executions, flogging and other forms of corporal punishment. Afghanistan’s formerly independent legal and judicial systems have been replaced by a system that is based on the Taliban’s own arbitrary interpretation of religious edicts and rulings, and no longer function in a way that could protect the rights of the people of Afghanistan. As a joint statement by over 28 UN Special Procedure mandates on 14 August 2024 makes clear “avenues for justice within Taliban-controlled Afghanistan [are] virtually non-existent.” This situation is worsened by the fact that the Taliban have prohibited the Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan from accessing the country. The vast majority of crimes under international law and other serious human rights violations from the past, including summary killings and executions, tens of thousands of enforced disappearances, arbitrary detentions, torture and other ill-treatment by the former government, international forces, and armed groups who held power in parts of the country, remain unpunished. All of these violations have been committed with complete impunity, fuelling further cycles of violations and abuses. In this context, establishing a robust independent international investigative and accountability mechanism, with a mandate commensurate with the gravity and scale of the systematic and widespread violations and abuses of human rights, is necessary to advance justice and accountability in Afghanistan. The mechanism should have a mandate and sufficient financial and technical resources to adequately investigate, collect, consolidate, preserve and analyse evidence, with a view to facilitating future criminal proceedings in national and international courts. Such a mechanism should be designed to advance accountability for past and ongoing violations and abuses of human rights and crimes under international law, including those faced by women and girls and LGBTQI+ people across Afghanistan. Therefore, we call upon Member and Observer States of the U.N. Human Rights Council, in addition to renewing the crucial mandate of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, to establish an independent international mechanism for Afghanistan with a mandate to: Investigate all allegations of past and ongoing violations and abuses of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, and international crimes, including the crimes against humanity of gender persecution; Collect, consolidate, and analyse evidence, and prepare files on past and ongoing violations and abuses of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, including crimes under international law, with due consideration of the gender, child and minority dimensions surrounding such violations and abuses; and systematically record and preserve all information, documentation and evidence, including specific crimes against women and girls, in a manner consistent with international law standards and in view of future legal proceedings and accountability efforts; Identify, where possible, the individuals and entities responsible with a view to ensuring they are held accountable; Be provided with sufficient financial and technical resources. The mechanism should be staffed with independent international experts, including those with expertise on: international human rights law, international humanitarian law and international criminal law; experts in armed conflict dynamics, with specific knowledge of command structures of armed forces and armed groups; sexual and other gender-based violence; children’s rights; the rights of people with disabilities; video and image verification; and forensic analysis; Cooperate with existing international judicial mechanisms, such as the International Criminal Court (ICC), that have a mandate over the situation in Afghanistan, as well as national courts; and, Make recommendations to UN entities and bodies, such as the UN Security Council and UN General Assembly, and to UN member states with a view to ending impunity and ensuring accountability, including on access to justice for victims. Such a mechanism would complement the mandate of the Special Rapporteur and complement and support the ongoing investigation by the ICC’s Office of the Prosecutor into the situation in Afghanistan. We believe that the establishment of an independent international accountability mechanism for Afghanistan would: Strengthen pathways to victim- and survivor-centred justice and accountability in Afghanistan; Ensure that serious human rights violations and abuses across the country, including sexual and gender-based crimes, are investigated; and Contribute to preventing the recurrence of human rights violations and abuses, and ending the vicious cycles of violence in the country. We, therefore, urge Member and Observer States of the Council to stand in solidarity with the people of Afghanistan, and ensure all victims, survivors, and their families have credible and realistic prospects of justice and accountability.

The June 2022 Supreme Court decision Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization eliminated federal constitutional protection for access to abortion in the United States. Following Dobbs, more than a dozen states fully banned abortion, and many others passed or proposed increased restrictions. On October 17-18, 2023, the Human Rights Committee will review US compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), including the impact of Dobbs on its human rights obligations.

The undersigned organizations call on the Biden administration to update the United States’ fifth periodic report to the UN Human Rights Committee under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). The Committee will be basing its review on this report, which was submitted by the Trump administration on January 15, 2021. This report version lacks updates on existing U.S. policies, as well as a commitment to expand protections for marginalized communities, especially non-citizens, in the context of reproductive health and access to medical care. It is critical — and consistent with the Biden administration’s policy commitments — to address the gaps between current U.S. policies and the ICCPR.

Executive Summary Following the United States (US) Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization in June 2022, people residing in the US who can become pregnant are facing a human rights crisis. This urgent appeal to United Nations (UN) mandate holders, supported by a coalition of 196 signatories, details these intensifying harms, discusses the ways in which Dobbs contravenes the US’ international obligations, and sets forth calls to action. With the Dobbs decision, the US Supreme Court overturned the constitutionally protected right to access abortion, leaving the question of whether and how to regulate abortion to individual states. Approximately 22 million women and girls of reproductive age in the US now live in states where abortion access is heavily restricted, and often totally inaccessible. The harms of the Dobbs decision detailed in this appeal include: the impact on women’s lives and health; the penalization of healthcare, including criminalization; threats to privacy from increased digital surveillance; infringement on freedom of thought, conscience and religion or belief; and the disproportionate impact on marginalized populations.  By overturning the established constitutional protection for access to abortion and through the passage of state laws, the US is in violation of its obligations under international human rights law, codified in a number of human rights treaties to which it is a party or a signatory. These human rights obligations include, but are not limited to, the rights to: life; health; privacy; liberty and security of person; to be free from torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment; freedom of thought, conscience, and religion or belief; equality and non-discrimination; and to seek, receive, and impart information. The signatories call on the UN mandate holders to take up their calls to action, which include communicating with the US regarding the human rights violations, requesting a visit to the US, convening a virtual stakeholder meeting with US civil society, calls for the US to comply with its obligations under international law, and calls for private companies to take a number of actions to protect reproductive rights.

Dear Ambassador Villegas, The organizations signing this letter write to you, in your capacity as President of the Human Rights Council (HRC), to request that you adopt measures to ensure that a woman is elected for the first time as the next Special Rapporteur on Torture (SRT) and to consider geographical representation in your decision. On July 8th, during the upcoming 50th HRC’s session, you will have the important responsibility of proposing the appointment of several Special Procedure mandate holders, including the next SRT. Created in 1985, the SRT has had a fundamental role in upholding the absolute prohibition of torture, responding to complaints, overseeing conditions of detention throughout the world, and developing fundamental human rights standards and recommendations to promote accountability, reparation and prevention of torture. Yet, none of the 6 experts who have held this role has been a woman, and only one of them has been from the Global South. As concluded by the HRC’s Advisory Committee in the report on gender balance in UN human right bodies presented to the HRC on 21 May, 20211, the lack of gender balance in international bodies not only affects women’s right to equality, but it also erodes the effectiveness of the institutions and limits the range of issues and perspectives that should be part of their legal and political agenda2. In the case of the SRT, this same limitation comes as a consequence of the lack of a Global South perspective in such a fundamental mandate. Read the Full Letter

Excellencies, We, the undersigned civil society organisations, urge you to call for and support an urgent debate at the 50th session of the UN Human Rights Council regarding the women’s rights crisis in Afghanistan. We further urge you to support a resolution responding to this crisis. Since August 2021, when the Taliban took control of the country, there has been an enormous deterioration in the recognition and protection of the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan, including with respect to the rights to non-discrimination, education, work, public participation, health, and sexual and reproductive health. The Taliban has also imposed sweeping restrictions on the rights to freedom of expression, association, assembly and movement for women and girls. Afghanistan is now the only country in the world to expressly prohibit girls’ education. In the last few weeks, the situation has worsened dramatically, with a Taliban directive that women and girls must fully cover themselves in public, including their faces, and leave home only in cases of necessity. International investigations, witness testimony and video evidence indicate that women human rights defenders and others protesting against the restrictions and violations have been subject to home invasions, threats, abductions, enforced disappearances, and assaults with electric devices and chemical sprays. Read the Full Letter

We, the undersigned human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs), strongly urge the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) to hold a special session on the ongoing human rights crisis in Ethiopia and to establish a robust investigative mechanism in that context. We urge your delegation to support such action without further delay. On 3 November the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and the Ethiopian Human Rights Commission (EHRC) released a joint report that found evidence of widespread violations of international human rights, humanitarian, and refugee law by all parties to the conflict in Tigray, including the Ethiopian National Defense Forces, Eritrean Defense Forces, the Tigray Defense Forces, and Amhara regional special police and affiliated Fano militias. The report also found that many of these violations and abuses may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. The report concluded that “the seriousness of these allegations calls for independent investigations and appropriate prosecution of those responsible,” and said that an international, independent mechanism can be established to collect evidence of the atrocities in preparation for future criminal prosecution. The joint report acknowledges it was not a comprehensive investigation into the crisis in northern Ethiopia and calls for further investigations. OHCHR and the EHRC were unable to visit key sites of massacres, like Axum, which was previously documented and reported on by international NGOs. Moreover, the report was only mandated to investigate abuses that took place from 3 November 2020 to 28 June 2021. The conflict remains ongoing and has spread to neighboring regions, threatening millions more civilians and where serious abuses have now also been documented. Abuses linked to the conflict are also taking place outside of the affected zones, as the High Commissioner reported last week, scores of ethnic Tigrayans have been arbitrarily arrested, including in Addis Ababa, in the last weeks alone. Download the Full Letter

To Permanent Representatives of Member and Observer States of the United Nations Human Rights Council (Geneva, Switzerland) Your Excellency, We, the undersigned human rights non-governmental organizations, strongly urge the UN Human Rights Council (HRC) to adopt a resolution at its upcoming 47th session (HRC47) on the ongoing human rights crisis in Tigray, Ethiopia. Over the last seven months an overwhelming number of reports have emerged of abuses and violations of international humanitarian and human rights law (IHL/IHRL) during the ongoing conflict in Ethiopia’s northern Tigray region. Reports by civil society organizations have detailed widespread massacres, violence against civilians and indiscriminate attacks across Tigray while preliminary analysis by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) indicates that all warring parties have committed abuses that may amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. There is now ample evidence that atrocities continue to be committed, notably by the Ethiopian National Defense Forces, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, Eritrean Defense Forces, and Amhara regional special police and affiliated Fano militias. These include indiscriminate attacks and direct attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, widespread and mass extrajudicial executions, rape and other sexual violence, forced displacement, arbitrary detentions, including of displaced persons, widespread destruction and pillage of civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, schools, factories and businesses, and the destruction of refugee camps, crops and livestock. The Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG) on Sexual Violence in Conflict has repeatedly expressed alarm over the widespread and systematic commission of rape and sexual violence in Tigray. On 21 April she stated that women and girls in Tigray are being subjected to sexual violence “with a cruelty that is beyond comprehension,” including gang rape by men in uniform, targeted sexual attacks on young girls and pregnant women, and family members forced to witness these horrific abuses. The SRSG also stated that these reports, coupled with assessments by healthcare providers in the region, indicate that sexual violence is being used as a weapon of war. Download the Full Letter 

To Permanent Representatives of Member and Observer States of the United Nations Human Rights Council, Geneva, Switzerland Your Excellency, We, the undersigned human rights non-governmental organizations, strongly support the call for a UN Human Rights Council (HRC) special session on the deteriorating human rights situation in Ethiopia and urge your delegation to support such a session without further delay. Since 4 November 2020, fighting between federal government forces and affiliated militias with forces and militia allied to Tigray’s ruling party, the Tigray People’s Liberation Front, has reportedly killed hundreds of civilians and caused more than one million people to flee their homes, including at least 57,000 refugees who are now in Sudan. There have been widespread reports of serious violations of international humanitarian law and human rights violations and abuses including possible atrocity crimes, including indiscriminate attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, unlawful killings, widespread looting, and rape and sexual violence against women and girls. There have also been reports of massacres committed along ethnic lines within Tigray, as well as ethnic profiling, discrimination, and hate speech against Tigrayans both within and outside the country. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has also expressed alarm for the “safety and well-being” of the 96,000 Eritrean refugees in Tigray, given the unconfirmed but “overwhelming number of reports of Eritrean refugees in Tigray being killed, abducted and forcibly returned to Eritrea,” where they could face persecution. Access to independent humanitarian aid continues to be limited in Tigray despite an agreement reached between the federal government and the UN on 29 November. Journalists critical of the government have been arrested, exacerbating existing restrictions on communication and information from the region. Read the Full Letter