In Madrid, at the sidelines of the People’s Tribunal for Women of Afghanistan, Zahra Nader, Editor-in-Chief of Zan Times, sat down with Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan.
Their conversation explores the struggle to document human rights under the Taliban’s rule — from Bennett’s renewed mandate and the creation of a new UN investigative mechanism, to the growing threats against journalists, the silencing of women, and the Taliban’s attempts to cut off Afghanistan from the world by shutting down the internet.
Zahra Nader: Thank you, Mr. Bennett, for giving us this opportunity to speak with you today. I want to go directly to talk about your mandate, which is renewed, and we are very happy for that. I want to know what will be your plan for the next year? How will you do your work considering the fact that you do not have access to go inside Afghanistan? And tell us about how your work will look like for the coming year.
Richard Bennett: Thank you very much, Zahra, for the interview and for that question. Yeah, of course, I’m happy that my mandate has been renewed for another year and that the resources for the mandate have been retained. Of course, I have not had access now for two years to Afghanistan, so I think it won’t make very much difference. We have already found ways to fulfill the mandate without visiting Afghanistan, using technology, and also because we, like many others, are able to get information from inside Afghanistan. I’ve produced three reports this year, and my fourth and final report will be presented to the General Assembly in New York on the 30th of October.
You know, it’s actually not unusual for human rights mandate holders to be barred from the country they’re working in. We only need to look at Iran; there is a special rapporteur who is unable to visit. There is also a fact-finding mission for Iran, and that can’t visit either. If we look the other way to Myanmar, it’s the same. So it’s not satisfactory, but fortunately, these days we can use technology to overcome most of the hurdles.
So my plan for the mandate in the coming year is, of course, to continue to focus quite a lot on the situation of women and girls, which is not improving, and my first report for 2026 will also be on the situation of women and girls. However, I’m keen to look at other issues as I have been already. One of these is the shrinking space for media and also for civil society generally. I also want to look more at the impact of the cuts in humanitarian aid. I know people have different opinions about this, but I think that it’s important that countries continue to provide humanitarian aid to Afghanistan because cutting the funding will hurt the people who are most in need. Rather than cutting, what needs to be done is to target the aid accurately so that it reaches the people who need it most. We’ll also want to look more at child rights and the situation of youth in Afghanistan and perhaps look at environmental issues. So these are some of the areas that I’ll be working on. Right now, I’m actually having an exercise or consultation with Afghans on what they see as the priorities for what they would like to focus on, and I want to be responsive to the wishes of Afghans in that respect.
Zahra Nader: Thank you so much for all that information. You mentioned technology and how that’s making our work possible, and as you know, the Taliban have targeted that very technology. They are trying to shut down the internet. They have done it for 48 hours — a total shutdown in Afghanistan that we experienced — and unfortunately, we media working in exile depend on the internet to do our work. I want to understand, what do you know about the internet cuts in Afghanistan and how do you anticipate that will impact your work and maybe our work as journalists who are working to cover Afghanistan? I would love to hear your thoughts on that.
Bennett: I think whenever we or whenever someone does something, there can be unintended consequences, and I actually think that’s what happened a few weeks ago. When the internet was shut down, there were unintended consequences. For example, the banks could not operate, the airlines could not operate, the airport closed. And it’s also very difficult to run a government these days without communications technology. So it’s not as easy as just shutting down because the de facto authorities are also affected. The economy would be badly affected. So I hope that telecommunications and the internet are fully restored and permanently restored.
But I think we also need to perhaps look at what happens in other countries nearby who also have quite authoritarian governments, and they tend to apply filters to the internet so that access is not complete, but it’s also not fully cut either. I think we just have to find workarounds. You know, many Afghans and some of us in the international community are quite used to dealing with these kinds of obstacles, and I think we’ll find solutions.
At the same time, technology is very important these days for all of us. It’s a lifeline for the younger generation. And which brings to mind that even cutting the internet could cause instability. We only need to look a bit further east of Afghanistan to Nepal to see how the youth kind of revolted when the government there decided to cut social media. So I think that needs to be taken into account as well — stability and security concerns.
So my recommendation, of course, is always that access to information is vital in any kind of open society, and if you deny access to information, I think there will be two consequences: one is that people will find workarounds anyway, and the other is that people will get frustrated, and so pressure will build up. So my view and recommendation is to allow access to information, allow criticism, allow the expression of different views, if they’re peaceful and not hateful. And then you have a chance of having a more stable society.
Zahra Nader: Unfortunately, that’s what the Taliban won’t do. Otherwise, you and I wouldn’t be here, I imagine. So my other question is that recently the UN approved the investigative mechanism for Afghanistan. I wanted to hear more about that mechanism. How does that differ from your work, and how hopeful are you that that will be helpful for the people of Afghanistan?
Bennett: Yeah. The mechanism was established just on Monday this week by the Human Rights Council. I have been supporting this mechanism — the establishment of this mechanism. It complements my mandate and it complements other mandates, and it adds to what I’ve been calling an “all the tools” approach needed for Afghanistan. It’s not yet set up and running, so we don’t know exactly how it will work, but just reading the resolution, the main thing I think it will do will be to investigate and collect evidence at a criminal standard, which is a high standard of evidence, and prepare files to facilitate prosecutions that may take place internationally in different countries or in international courts. It’s very similar to a mechanism called the IIMM, which has been running for about six or seven years for Myanmar. There’s also one for Syria. So I think it’s a very important addition with a focus on accountability and will work alongside my mandate.
My mandate continues as it is, and this new mechanism, I think, will not do the same as what I do. It won’t be reporting generally on the human rights situation, the concerns, the trends, expressing the voices, trying to give voice to Afghan people. Rather, it will be taking in information, some of which I do as well, and also getting information about perpetrators, identifying perpetrators so that in the future there may be prosecutions. It’s more similar to the International Criminal Court than it is to my mandate.
So more details will emerge in time. It also will not begin functioning immediately. First of all, the resources need to be found for this mandate from within the UN system. And also, it is able to accept voluntary contributions, and then there’ll be a period of setting it up. So I don’t expect we should have expectations of it functioning for quite a few months yet. I would think well into 2026.
So until then, I continue with the work that I do and will continue after that as well. But I think this is a very important addition, and it could hopefully have a deterrent effect. One of the concerns that many of us, including me, who work on human rights have is that there has been a climate of impunity in Afghanistan for many, many years. Not just the last four years, but decades before that. And this impunity means there are no consequences for serious crimes. And if that’s the case, there’s no incentive not to do bad things — no consequences for wrongdoing. And the fact that there are mechanisms being set up, the ICC and this one, that will result in consequences for wrongdoing might have a deterrent effect because those who are committing violations should know now that eventually, they may be held to account.
So I hope it does have a positive effect in that respect. I think it will also give hope to the people of Afghanistan, perhaps especially to women and girls, because the signal is that the international community has not forgotten them. And on this occasion, the Human Rights Council has not just said words, not just expressed concern about Afghanistan; it has taken action. It’s set up a mechanism that it’s only been done once before, for Syria, but that was established by the General Assembly. So especially at a time when the UN is under pressure financially, politically, it’s actually even more to be acknowledged that the Human Rights Council has taken this very major step.
Now the next challenge will be for the Council to get this mechanism up and running, operational, and I hope that the donors that voted — or the countries that voted — in favour of this will now pay for it. I would also just like to say that this resolution, which also included my own mandate, was passed by consensus in the Human Rights Council. There was no vote. As far as I know, of all the countries, it wasn’t pushed to a vote, so it’s by consensus. And only one country spoke in the Human Rights Council against it, and that was China, which said that they would not support it, but on the other hand, also they did not ask for a vote. So it was a fairly soft opposition, I would say. And it’s a sign, contrary to reports coming out of Afghanistan from the Taliban, that the international community is really very concerned about the situation — particularly the human rights situation. It would not do this, it would not do it by consensus, unless it was very concerned, and this is a strong action against the normalization of what is unacceptable conduct from the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Zahra Nader: Just another quick question. Do you think this mechanism would be able to also look further, not only in the past four years of the Taliban but also in the past 20 years and before?
Bennett: Yeah, that’s a very good question. I should have mentioned that. Thank you, Zahra. Yeah. The mandate is what is called comprehensive. That means it can do that. It will, and that’s something I think even the Taliban should welcome because it has the capacity not only to look at the last four years, not only to look at one or two groups, but to look into the behavior of all parties to the conflicts with no starting point. So they can decide — they can go back 20, 30, 40 years if they want.
And we know, and I have always been calling for this because I’ve worked on Afghanistan for 20 years, and I know that the human rights situation was quite serious even during the republic and before then, and that there should not be any selectivity for victims. If you were a victim 20 or 30 years ago, you have just as much right to truth and to justice as a victim from last year. I can’t go to a victim and say, “Well, because what happened to your family was before a certain date, there will be no justice for you.”
So I’m really supportive of that comprehensive mandate. And of course, it shouldn’t matter who is the party that committed it. It could be the current de facto authorities, it might be the previous government or the government before that, and it might well be the international forces who were in Afghanistan. I think in that regard, we know that some countries have begun accountability processes domestically, and that should be encouraged. It’s much better if there is domestic accountability. I think it’s known that Australia has a process underway, and I hope that speeds up. The UK also has started a process and some others, and that’s strongly encouraged if countries seek justice domestically themselves. There’s no need as much for an international body to come in.
So I hope this also encourages all of the countries who were involved in the very long war in Afghanistan to do internal reflections and to ensure that they take a victim-centered approach as well, and that the victims and survivors in Afghanistan can look forward to receiving some justice now.
Zahra Nader: Exactly. I hope they do, but I’m not very hopeful. And my last question is about, since the internet restriction and cuts in Afghanistan, are there any changes to the way that people from Afghanistan or outside can submit evidence or try to reach you by trying to tell you their stories of what happened to them? Are there any changes made to the way that they can reach you or not?
Bennett: At the moment, the best way to reach me is by email. We have a generic email address that people can use. Most people have access to some form of email. Or they can reach me indirectly if they pass it through a colleague or even through you so that it reaches me. So we tend to encourage outreach to my mandate by email. We also have WhatsApp. So if the internet is cut completely, we will have to look at that again, but at the moment, I think it’s still operating.
Zahra Nader: Okay. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you taking the time to speak with me.
