Click to expand Image Taliban fighters patrol in Kabul, Afghanistan, August 19, 2021. © 2021 Rahmat Gul/AP Photo The Australian government’s proposed amendments to its sanctions regulations are an important step toward accountability for Taliban officials and others responsible for serious abuses in Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch said in a recent submission to the Australian government.The amended Autonomous Sanctions Regulations introduce new listing criteria that are specific to Afghanistan and will enable the Australian government to impose targeted sanctions and travel bans on individuals and entities in Afghanistan who are engaging in, responsible for, or complicit in the oppression of women, girls, and minority groups, or oppression in general. It will also permit sanctions against anyone undermining good governance and the rule of law in Afghanistan.“It’s crucial for the Australian government to take action against Taliban leaders responsible for the assault on women and girls’ rights and other egregious abuses in Afghanistan,” said Daniela Gavshon, Australia director at Human Rights Watch. “The amended sanctions regulations will allow Australia to join with other countries already taking steps to oppose the Taliban’s widespread and systematic oppression.”The Taliban, since taking over the country in August 2021, have deepened their attack on the rights of women and girls, which amounts to the crime against humanity of gender persecution. UN human rights experts and Afghan women’s rights activists have described the Taliban’s systematic and structural violations on women and girls as “gender apartheid.”Taliban authorities have also increasingly restricted civic space, carried out broad censorship, and detained and tortured journalists and activists. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Afghans, and people who do not conform to rigid gender norms in Afghanistan have faced an increasingly desperate situation and grave threats to their safety and lives under the Taliban. In addition, groups affiliated with the Islamic State (ISIS) have carried out bombings targeting ethnic Hazara Shia and others, killing and injuring hundreds of people.“The Australian government should use targeted sanctions as an important foreign policy tool against the Taliban to press for accountability for serious abuses,” Gavshon said. “Imposing sanctions on abusive leaders is one of several measures that can raise the cost of committing human rights violations in Afghanistan and elsewhere.”