Rawadari Exposes Systematic Torture in Taliban Prisons

Rawadari, a human rights organization, has revealed in a recent report that the Taliban systematically torture detainees—often to extract forced confessions, and in some cases, merely for amusement.

The report, titled "Torture and Ill-Treatment: The State of Prisons in Taliban-Controlled Afghanistan," was published on Tuesday, June 25. It is based on direct interviews with 34 former detainees, including 7 women, from 16 provinces across the country.

According to the report, the Taliban use torture as a tool to suppress civil protests and public demands for justice, as well as to seek revenge against former government employees—particularly critics and opponents of the regime.

The findings show that Taliban forces subject detainees to systematic physical, psychological, and—in some cases—sexual torture, starting from the moment of arrest and, in some instances, even after release.

Previously, the independent media outlet RM Media had also exposed the inhumane conditions of prisoners held in Taliban-controlled facilities, particularly in northern Afghanistan. According to RM Media’s findings, detainees are held without formal charges and subjected to brutal methods such as confinement in cages, suspension in wells, beatings, denial of family visits, and other forms of physical and psychological torture.

According to Rawadari’s report, torture methods used by the Taliban include flogging with whips and rifle butts, electric shocks, the removal of fingernails and teeth, mock executions by suffocation, covering detainees' heads with plastic bags, and suspending them from the ceiling.

Six of the interviewed women reported being sexually assaulted during detention. These abuses included forced nudity, inappropriate touching, and verbal sexual harassment by Taliban guards.

The report also documents threats of execution, stoning, beheading, and threats against detainees’ family members. Ethnic and religious slurs, forced confessions, and long-term solitary confinement were also common forms of psychological torture.

Those directly responsible for these acts include heads of intelligence departments, district commanders, field investigators, and low-ranking officers in the Taliban’s intelligence and police forces.

Rawadari states that most arrests were made without any formal warrants or legal justification. Detainees were held in unofficial detention centers, such as abandoned buildings, shipping containers, basements, public restrooms, and even private prisons owned by Taliban officials.

In these locations, prisoners were deprived of the most basic necessities—clean drinking water, sufficient food, medical care, and sanitary facilities. One former detainee recalled: “Sometimes we were given a bottle of mineral water and a piece of stale bread every other day—or every two days. They would throw the bread on the filthy floor of the cell.”

The report emphasizes that the Taliban’s abolishment of Afghanistan’s Constitution and related laws protecting detainee rights has eliminated all legal safeguards, fostering a culture of total impunity and a lack of accountability for perpetrators of torture.