Australia announces sanctions on senior officials of Afghanistan’s Taliban government News
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Australia announces sanctions on senior officials of Afghanistan’s Taliban government

The Australian government on Saturday announced that it had imposed financial sanctions and travel bans on four senior officials of Afghanistan’s Taliban-run government, in an effort to curtail the regime’s humanitarian violations against women and girls in the country.

In early December 2025, Australia unveiled the autonomous sanctions framework in response to the dire situation in Afghanistan, empowering the Australian Foreign Minister to implement travel bans and impose financial sanctions if satisfied that they fulfill item 1A of regulation 6 of the Autonomous Sanctions Regulations of 2011. The Australian government conducted a comprehensive assessment of Afghan officials responsible for repressing the rights of women and girls, persecuting minority groups, contributing to the widespread suffering of the Afghan people, and impeding the rule of law.

Following this assessment, four individuals of interest were identified: Muhammad Khalid Hanafi, Neda Mohammad Nadeem, Shaikh-Al-Hadith Mawlawi Abdul-Hakim Sharei and Abdul Hakim Haqqani. In essence, the effects of these designations mean that they have been prohibited from entering, travelling to, or remaining in Australia. Abdul Hakim Haqqani is the acting chief justice of the Supreme Court of Afghanistan, and stands accused of manipulating the law to effectively exclude women from undertaking positions as judges, and issuing guidances that strip women of the right to partake in public life.

Muhammad Khalid Hanafi, the acting Taliban minister for the propagation of virtue and prevention of vice, has published decrees that limit the rights of women and girls to freedom of expression, imposing gender-segregated timetables for the use of public spaces as well as disproportionate punishments for not adhering to the Taliban’s rules of public conduct. Shaikh-Al-Hadith Mawlawi Abdul-Hakim Sharei, who is the acting Taliban minister of justice, has been accused of removing women’s access to legal representation and ending the domestic application of the Law on the Elimination of Violence against Women via an unconstitutional overhaul of the Afghan legislative system.

The fourth and final individual, Neda Mohammad Nadeem, the minister of higher education, took the step of banning Afghan women from accessing universities back in 2022, a decision which led to protests by women’s rights groups across Afghanistan and drew outrage globally. The suspension of access to higher education for women was a measure to avoid “mixing different genders,” indirect contravention of Article 10 of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), which guarantees women equal rights in education.

In activating these Magnitsky-style autonomous sanctions, Australia has sent a clear message that those responsible for orchestrating and enforcing the systematic exclusion of women and girls in Afghanistan will face direct personal consequences. By targeting four senior Taliban officials with financial sanctions and travel bans, Australia has used its domestic legal framework to respond to serious and sustained violations of fundamental rights, including the denial of access to education, justice and public life. While the practical effect of travel bans and asset freezes on individual Taliban officials may be limited, these measures form part of a growing body of coordinated international pressure aimed at isolating perpetrators of gender persecution. Australia’s action underscores that the denial of women’s and girls’ fundamental rights is not an internal matter, but a violation of obligations owed to the international community as a whole.

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