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The data, though incomplete, points to a dramatic escalation of persecution in 2024, with a reported sixfold increase in documented cases compared to 2023. This law defines specific sexual activities and prohibits some of them. Following the Taliban's takeover in August 2021, the need for urgent support has intensified. These threats include harassment, torture, beatings, sexual assault, public punishment, and extrajudicial executions, such as stoning, crushing under walls, and other forms of execution.
Ahmadullah was with his boyfriend and he urged him to go home. Many interviewees spoke of the profound sense of isolation and the fear of reprisal that prevented them from seeking help even before the Taliban takeover. However, the new penal law was enacted on February 14, 2018. According to the Alfred Kinsey research conducted during the mid-half of the last century, about 10% of a population is reported to be homosexual.
The accounts consistently depict a pattern of dehumanization, with LGBTQ+ individuals subjected to brutal torture methods, including electric shocks, genital mutilation, and gang rape. But with the Taliban at the helm, they say their lives are now in danger.
Last year, a Taliban judge told a German news outlet that he prescribed two kinds of punishment for gay men: stoning or having a 3-metre-high wall fall on them.
“The Taliban regime is truly the dark ages for Afghan LGBTQ people,” Shir, a 21-year-old artist, told VICE World News from Kabul.
Qadam Shah, 32, had a lot going for him before the Taliban came. Does the international community want to be remembered for abandoning our LGBT+ brothers and sisters in Afghanistan to tyrannical terrorists or rescue the lives of the most vulnerable group in the country right now?
LGBT+ Afghans have fought for their rights in an extremely hostile environment.
“Things are certainly more extreme now.”
Since August 2021, hundreds of thousands of Afghans have fled to neighbouring countries, with a minority of them being LGBTQ Afghans. Despite the post-2001 constitution, no legal framework existed to protect them. On August 28 last year, Allahyar was stopped in the hospital by some armed Taliban men who outed him in front of his colleagues and punched him in the face multiple times.
“They wanted to arrest me but fortunately, a few locals mediated and they didn’t let them take me,” he told VICE World News.
When Ahmadullah didn’t hear back from his boyfriend, he found out from a mutual connection, that his lover was beheaded by the Taliban because they noticed he was effeminate and recognised he could be a homosexual. Details of their witness testimony are too explicit to contemplate exploring here, but the evidence is testament to the bravery of those who have suffered.
The Responsibility of the International Community
The silence surrounding the persecution of Afghanistan’s LGBTQ+ community can no longer be tolerated.
Ahmadullah was with his boyfriend and he urged him to go home. Independent media have also confirmed that these individuals face serious dangers, with high statistics of abuse and violence recorded against them.”
10.What narratives have been shared by LGBTQ+ community members regarding the behavior of the Taliban during arrests and imprisonment?
LGBTQ+ individuals have reported facing the worst forms of torture during their arrests and in prisons, including electric shocks, physical and psychological torture, gang sexual assault, and threats to their lives.
The Taliban’s verbal harassment is equally chilling, using dehumanizing language to justify their actions. They have called for financial and legal assistance to support LGBTQ+ individuals in Afghanistan, the establishment of a faster asylum system, and increased pressure on the Taliban to put an end to human rights violations against the LGBTQ+ community.
4.How does the report suggest applying stronger diplomatic pressure to address the human rights violations against the LGBTQ+ community in Afghanistan?
The report suggests that influential countries increase diplomatic pressure by utilizing economic sanctions, severing diplomatic relations, and imposing travel restrictions on Taliban officials, while condemning the violations of LGBTQ+ rights in Afghanistan.
5.What is the significance of establishing an International Truth Commission to investigate human rights violations against the LGBTQ+ community in Afghanistan?
Establishing an international truth commission would help clarify cases of human rights violations, collect credible evidence and documentation, and provide reports to global human rights organizations.
Many LGBTQ people I’m in contact with believe that the Taliban will start hunting them down, especially once the US and the international community make their final exit and the last evacuation plane has left. Shir is gay, and he said many queer Afghans aren’t stepping out of their homes, even to buy groceries, for the fear of being accosted by the Taliban.
I’m trying to help LGBTQ Afghans get asylum visas and evacuated on the chartered flights that will continue to go until the end of this month, maybe bleeding into early next month depending on how the process goes.
