KABUL: The UN special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Afghanistan has been barred from entering the country, a diplomatic source told AFP on Tuesday.
“Richard Bennett was informed of the decision that he would not be welcome to return to Afghanistan several months ago,” a diplomatic source confirmed to AFP after local media reported the ban, citing a Taliban government spokesman.
Bennett marked two years in the role on May 1.
Since returning to power in August 2021, Taliban authorities have enforced rules based on a strict interpretation of Islamic law.
Women have borne the brunt of restrictions the United Nations has labelled “gender apartheid” which have pushed them from public life.
They have been barred from secondary and higher education, as well as blocked from working in many jobs or entering public parks, gyms and traveling without a male relative.
The Taliban government remains unrecognized by any other state, with its restrictions on women a key sticking point.
Taliban authorities have systematically dismissed criticism of their policies from the UN and the international community.
However, when the ban was apparently issued months ago, the Taliban government stressed that their issue was not with human rights monitoring and reporting, but with Bennett personally, according to diplomatic sources.
Earlier Tuesday, Afghanistan’s Tolo News quoted chief Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid as saying that Bennett had been banned “because he was appointed to Afghanistan to spread propaganda and he is not someone whose words we can trust.”
“He took small issues and exaggerated them for propaganda,” he said.
In recent months, Bennett has issued strong statements on women’s rights in Afghanistan at moments when the country was in the international spotlight.
Last week, as the Taliban authorities celebrated the third anniversary of their takeover of Afghanistan, Bennett joined 29 other UN experts in a statement urging the international community to “not normalize the de facto authorities or their appalling human rights violations,” he said on X.
In late June, Bennett condemned the decision to exclude rights issues from the agenda and Afghan women and civil society representatives from the table at UN-hosted talks in Qatar — a condition of Taliban representatives’ attendance at the meetings with the international community.
“The cost is too high,” he wrote in a New York Times opinion piece.
In New York, Stephane Dujarric, a spokesman for UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, did not confirm or deny the ban Tuesday but said: “Special rapporteurs play a very critical part in the global human rights architecture. We encourage full cooperation with them.”
Special rapporteurs like Bennett are independent experts within the Special Procedures body of the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council.
The UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) maintains a human rights monitoring and reporting function in the country.
UN rights expert barred from Afghanistan: diplomatic source
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UN rights expert barred from Afghanistan: diplomatic source
US Justice Department official eyes cases against Cuba leaders as Trump floats ‘friendly takeover’
- “Working group” formed to build cases against people connected to the Cuban government
- Trump’s has increasingly displayed aggressive stance against Cuba’s communist leadership
MIAMI: The top Justice Department prosecutor in Miami is considering criminal investigations of Cuban government officials, according to people familiar with the matter. The inquiry comes as President Donald Trump has raised the possibility of a “friendly takeover” of the communist-run island.
Jason Reding Quiñones, the US attorney for the Southern District of Florida, has created a “working group” that includes federal prosecutors and officials from the Drug Enforcement Administration and other agencies to try to build cases against people connected to the Cuban government and its Communist Party, according to one of the people. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the effort.
It was not immediately clear which Cuban officials the office is targeting or what criminal charges prosecutors may be looking to bring.
The Justice Department said in a statement Friday that “federal prosecutors from across the country work every day to pursue justice, which includes efforts to combat transnational crime.”
The effort is taking place against the backdrop of Trump’s increasingly aggressive stance against Cuba’s communist leadership.
Emboldened by the US capture of Cuba’s close ally, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, Trump last month said his administration was in high-level talks with officials in Havana to pursue “a friendly takeover” of the country. He repeated those claims this week, saying his attention would turn back to Cuba once the war with Iran winds down.
“They want to make a deal so bad,” Trump said of Cuba’s leadership.
While Cuba has faded from Washington’s radar as a major national security threat in recent decades, it remains a priority in the US Attorney’s office in Miami, whose political, economic and cultural life is dominated by Cuban-American exiles.
The FBI field office has a dedicated Cuba group that in 2024 was instrumental in the arrest of former US Ambassador Victor Manuel Rocha on charges of serving as a secret agent of Cuba stretching back to the 1970s.
In recent weeks, several Miami Republicans, in addition to Florida Sen. Rick Scott, have called on the Trump administration to reopen its criminal investigation into the 1996 shootdown of four planes operated by anti-communist exiles.
In a letter to Trump on Feb. 13, lawmakers including Reps. Maria Elvira Salazar and Carlos Gimenez highlighted decades-old news reports indicating that former President Raúl Castro — the head of Cuba’s military at the time — gave the order to shoot down the unarmed Cessna aircraft.
“We believe unequivocally that Raúl Castro is responsible for this heinous crime,” lawmakers wrote. “It is time for him to be brought to justice.”
While no indictment against Castro has been announced, Florida’s attorney general said this week that he would open a state-level investigation into the crime.
The Trump administration has also accused Cuba of not cooperating with American counterterrorism efforts, adding it alongside North Korea and Iran to a select few nations the US considers state sponsors of terrorism.
The designation stems from Cuba’s harboring of US fugitives and its refusal to extradite several Colombian rebel leaders while they were engaged in peace talks with the South American nation.
