Taliban: Land Restitution Has Nothing to Do With Ethnicity or Religion

DID Press: Abdul Hakim Sharaee, the Taliban’s Minister of Justice and head of the commission overseeing the prevention of land grabbing, said at a coordination meeting with officials from charitable foundations in Kabul that implementing rulings issued by the special court on seized “state-owned” land is a religious and legal duty of the commission. He said the rulings are based on documents and laws and must be applied equally to everyone. Sharaee added that linking the restitution of land to ethnicity, religion or language is illogical.

Despite these claims, reports published by independent media and human rights organizations indicate that the Taliban’s treatment of settlements built on state-owned land has not been uniform. According to these reports, residents of predominantly Shia settlements have in some cases been ordered to vacate their homes, without sufficient legal transparency or an effective opportunity to challenge the decisions.

The process, particularly in predominantly Shia areas, has been described as discriminatory and a violation of residents’ property rights, raising broader concerns that allegations of “land grabbing” could be used as a means of exerting political and social pressure on particular ethnic or religious communities.