The Taliban announced in August that it had destroyed over 20,000 musical instruments in Afghanistan in the past year. The extremist group considers instruments un-Islamic and permits only unaccompanied singing. In interviews with RFE/RL, an exiled Afghan musician condemned the move, while the head of the Afghanistan National Institute of Music said, “Music was the first victim of the Taliban’s return.”
Pakistan’s Ban On Prominent Civil Rights Group Will ‘Alienate’ Pashtun Minority
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
October 12, 2024
By Abubakar Siddique
Pakistan’s decision to ban a prominent civil rights organization will further alienate the country’s large Pashtun ethnic minority, experts say.
The Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM), a grassroots movement that advocates for the rights of Pakistan’s estimated 40 million Pashtuns, was designated a “proscribed organization” on October 6 for allegedly undermining security in the South Asian country of some 240 million people.
Rights groups say the ban is aimed at silencing the PTM, which has accused the government and the powerful military of committing human rights abuses against civilians in northwestern Pakistan, a militant stronghold.
Analysts say the ban could push the PTM to abandon its nonviolent campaign and further destabilize the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, where many Pashtuns live.
“It’s going to make Pashtuns much more apprehensive of the state,” said Ayesha Siddiqa, senior fellow at King’s College London. “There’s going to be greater resentment and frustration.”
Since its emergence in 2018, the PTM has accused the army of using heavy-handed tactics, including extrajudicial killings, torture, and enforced disappearances, against civilians during counterterrorism operations against militant groups in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The province has been the scene of numerous operations against the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) extremist group that have killed thousands of Pashtun civilians and uprooted millions in the past two decades.
Siddiqa said the ban on the PTM was a “knee-jerk reaction” by Pakistan’s military, which has an oversized role in the country’s domestic and foreign affairs. Its traditional dominance of politics has been undermined in recent years by civil rights organizations like the PTM and opposition political parties.
“PTM is a political movement, and that is something which the state finds much more difficult to control,” Siddiqa added.
In recent years, the authorities have arrested and jailed the leaders and hundreds of members of the PTM, whose rallies often attract tens of thousands of people.
Widespread Condemnation
The government’s ban on the PTM has been widely condemned.
Amnesty International on October 8 called on Islamabad to revoke the ban, which it termed “an affront to the rights to freedom of association and peaceful assembly.”
Two days earlier, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, an independent rights watchdog, had criticized what it said was “the government’s decision to proscribe the PTM, a rights-based movement that has never resorted to violence and always used the framework of the Constitution to advocate its cause.”
The PTM has said that over 200 of its members have been arrested in recent days ahead of a jirga, or assembly, planned for October 11-13.
Two days before the assembly, police clashed with PTM supporters in the northwestern town of Jamrud, using tear gas and batons to disperse the crowd. At least four PTM activists were killed in the clashes.
Despite the ban on the PTM, the provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has permitted the group to hold the assembly. On October 11, the provincial authorities said they will urge the central government to revoke the ban.
“The PTM has been raising very legitimate demands,” said Farhatullah Babar, a former lawmaker and leader of the secular Pakistan People’s Party.
He said the army and government have consistently reneged on promises it made to the PTM, including the removal of military checkpoints in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the clearance of landmines, and the release of civilians forcibly disappeared by the state.
“Stifling its voice will go down very badly with the entire Pashtun people,” said Babar. “I think that this will alienate people even more. The incentives for them to remain peaceful will now decrease.”
Copyright (c) 2024. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
UN mourns ban on Afghan girls’ education on international girl child day
Roza Otunbaeva
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
October 11, 2024
Islamabad — The United Nations expressed “a great deal of sorrow” Friday over the continued ban on girls’ secondary school education in Taliban-led Afghanistan as the world body marked the International Day of the Girl Child.
Roza Otunbayeva, the head of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, renewed her appeal to Taliban leaders to “change course” by lifting the restrictions. She lamented that over 1,100 days have passed since the de facto Afghan authorities imposed the ban on educating girls over the age of 12.
“This is more than three years of lost opportunity – not just for millions of girls, but for families, communities, and the entire country,” Otunbayeva stated.
”As each day passes, even greater damage is being done to the lives of women and girls. Afghanistan is being taken backwards, not forwards, in its quest for peace, recovery, and prosperity,” the U.N. envoy added.
Otunbayeva pledged that her organization will continue to advocate for Afghan women and girls, even in the face of attempts to silence them.
The Taliban have enforced their strict interpretation of Islamic law since regaining control of the impoverished country in 2021.
Girls ages 12 and older are barred from attending school, making Afghanistan the only country with that restriction. Female students have been prohibited from attending universities, and most Afghan women are banned from working in both public and private sectors, including the U.N. They are also forbidden from visiting public places such as parks and gyms.
Islamist leaders enacted contentious “vice and virtue” laws last month, which solidified existing restrictions on women’s freedoms and deemed the sound of a female’s voice in public as a moral violation.
The decree requires women to cover their entire bodies and faces when outdoors and forbids them from looking at men to whom they are not related and vice versa, sparking a global outcry and calls for reversing the curbs.
The Taliban government, which is officially not recognized by any country, defends its policies as being aligned with Sharia and Afghan customs, rejecting international criticism as an interference in the internal affairs of the country.
The United Nations recognizes October 11 as the International Day of the Girl Child to acknowledge girls’ rights and the challenges they face worldwide.
Related
Tolo News in Dari – October 11, 2024
The EU is helping Turkey forcibly deport migrants to Syria and Afghanistan
Politico: European taxpayers finance ill-treatment and forced expulsion, an investigation found. In recent years, the Turkish government started using much of this EU-funded infrastructure to reduce the number of asylum-seekers it hosts by rounding up and forcibly deporting Syrians, Afghans, and others facing danger in their home countries, according to an investigation by POLITICO and eight other news outlets, in partnership with Lighthouse Reports. Click here to read more (external link).
Uzbekistan accepts ambassador from Taliban-led Afghanistan
Met with H.E. Abdul Ghafar Terawi, who is starting his tenure as the Head of the Diplomatic Mission of #Afghanistan in #Uzbekistan. Our countries share a common history and interests of prosperity that serve as an impetus for the development of cooperation ties in all areas. We… pic.twitter.com/mc35n86Vy4
— Bakhtiyor Saidov 🇺🇿 (@FM_Saidov) October 9, 2024
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
October 10, 2024
Islamabad, Pakistan — Afghanistan’s Taliban said Thursday that Uzbekistan had accepted their appointed ambassador, and both sides marked the action as an important advancement in strengthening diplomatic ties between the neighboring countries.
The action is seen as a rare diplomatic achievement for the internationally isolated Taliban leaders since they regained control of the country three years ago.
Until now, China and the United Arab Emirates were the only two countries that had formally accredited a Taliban-appointed ambassador since Afghan insurgents regained power in Kabul.
None of the three nations has recognized the Taliban as the official government of Afghanistan, and neither has the rest of the world, citing concerns about inclusivity, terrorism, and restrictions on women’s access to education and work.
The Taliban’s foreign ministry identified its diplomat to Tashkent as Sheikh Abdul Ghafar Bahr, saying he formally presented a copy of his credentials to Uzbek Minister of Foreign Affairs Bakhtiyor Saidov on Wednesday.
“Bahr described the upgradation of bilateral relations as a pivotal phase, hoping for further progress,” the Taliban quoted their ambassador as saying at Wednesday’s ceremony to welcome him in the Uzbek capital.
The statement quoted Saidov as noting that “both countries enjoy shared interests and have achieved substantial economic growth over the past three years.” The Taliban said that Bahr “is expected to present his original letter of credence” to President Shavkat Mirziyoyev of Uzbekistan.
“Our countries share a common history and interests of prosperity that serve as an impetus for the development of cooperation ties in all areas,” Saidov said on his social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, after Wednesday’s ceremony. “We also discussed the acute topics on bilateral, regional, and global agendas,” the Uzbek foreign minister wrote.
The Taliban separately stated Thursday that their Ministry of Mines and Petroleum had signed a 10-year contract with an Uzbek company for the exploration and extraction of gas in Afghanistan.
The announcement said the agreement requires the Uzbek company to invest $100 million in the first year and $1 billion over the next 10 years. The investment will target the gas reserves of the Totimaidan field in the northern Afghan province of Faryab, which spans an area of about 7,000 square kilometers.
Russia reported last week that a “principal decision” had already been made to remove the Taliban from its list of transnational terrorist organizations, saying relevant Russian agencies were “putting finishing touches” on the delisting in line with federal law.
U.S.-led Western countries have been pressing the Taliban to reverse restrictions on women’s freedoms and their right to education as well as employment before they could consider engaging diplomatically with Kabul. Washington also wants the de facto Afghan rulers to address regional and international terrorism concerns.
“We have not changed our designation of the Taliban as a specially designated global terrorist organization, and we continue to make clear that any significant steps towards normalization of relations is contingent upon a profound shift in the Taliban’s human rights conduct,” Matthew Miller, the U.S. State Department spokesperson said on Tuesday.
“We continue to work with our allies and partners to press the Taliban to reverse their discriminatory edicts, and we make sure that any significant steps toward normalization of relations are contingent upon profound improvements in their treatment of women and girls, including but not limited to allowing women and girls back in school and lifting the restrictions on women’s employment,” Miller explained.
Taliban leaders defend their governance, arguing that it is in line with their interpretation of the Islamic law of Sharia. They also rejected criticism of their curbs on Afghan women’s access to education, employment, and public life at large.
Abdul Kabir, the Taliban’s deputy prime minister for political affairs, reportedly said Thursday that their government aims to maintain positive relations with all countries. However, he emphasized that “they will not sacrifice Islamic principles or values to please others.”
Kabir asserted in his remarks that the Taliban are currently in control of “40 diplomatic missions in different countries and engagement with the world is moving in a positive direction.”
FBI’s Arrest Of Afghan Underscores Growing Threat Of Islamic State-Khorasan
A still taken from an undated video shows Hafiz Saeed (center), the founder of IS-K, at an undisclosed location at the Afghanistan-Pakistani border in January 2015.
By Frud Bezhan and Zhakfar Ahmadi
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
October 10, 2024
The FBI’s arrest of an Afghan man who allegedly planned a U.S. Election Day attack has underscored the growing threat posed by the Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K) extremist group to the West.
Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, an Afghan citizen living in the United States, plotted an attack on November 5 in the name of IS-K, the U.S. Justice Department said.
Based in Afghanistan, IS-K has carried out a series of devastating, high-profile attacks in Russia, Iran, and Tajikistan in recent years.
“IS-K poses a dangerous threat to both the region and the West,” said Abdul Sayed, a Sweden-based researcher who tracks militancy in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.
“IS-K is not confined to Afghanistan alone,” Sayed added. “It operates with a global agenda and has a network functioning both regionally and internationally.”
Resilient Force
IS-K is considered the most active and potent of all the regional affiliates of Islamic State (IS), the extremist group that overran large swaths of Iraq and Syria in 2014. IS was largely defeated by a U.S.-led coalition.
IS-K was founded in Afghanistan in late 2014 and captured small pockets of territory in the country as part of IS’s broader aim of expansion throughout South and Central Asia.
But it soon came under fire from Afghan and international forces as well as the Taliban, a rival militant group.
The threat posed by IS-K has increased since the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan and the collapse of the Western-backed Afghan government in 2021, analysts say.
The Taliban, which then seized power, has waged a brutal war against IS-K, killing or capturing its key commanders and hundreds of its fighters. But IS-K has embarked on a strategy of urban warfare and remains a resilient force.
The group’s ranks have been boosted by foreign fighters, particularly those from the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.
That has allowed IS-K — which seeks to establish a caliphate, or Islamic state, in Khorasan, a historical region that includes parts of modern-day Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, and Central Asia — to continue its attacks in Afghanistan and conduct complex assaults in the region.
In March, IS-K militants stormed the Crocus City Hall outside Moscow, killing around 140 people, underlining the threat it poses in the region.
Exploiting Grievances
Experts say extremist groups like IS-K have tried to exploit the grievances among Muslims since Israel launched its devastating war in the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian enclave.
That came after Hamas, a U.S.- and EU-designated terrorist group, carried out an attack on Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people.
Israel has recently expanded its war by launching a deadly aerial bombardment and ground invasion of Lebanon targeting Hezbollah, the armed group and political party that controls much of southern Lebanon.
Lucas Webber, co-founder of Militant Wire and research fellow at the Soufan Center, says IS-K has been vocal in calling for attacks against the West in the wake of the conflict in the Middle East.
“[IS-K] has a robust, multilingual propaganda apparatus,” Webber told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi. “They can reach a diverse range of diaspora communities to build support and mobilize supporters to violence.”
Webber says IS-K and its recruiters have targeted Europe. Now, he said, “we’re starting to see an increase of activity in North America and the United States, specifically.”
Copyright (c) 2024. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
Tolo News in Dari – October 10, 2024
Turkey to begin restoration of Mawlana Jalaluddin Balkhi’s father’s Monastery in Balkh soon: Ministry
Rumi
Khaama: The Taliban’s Ministry of Information and Culture has announced that the Turkish Cooperation and Coordination Agency (TIKA) will soon begin the restoration of the monastery of Mawlana Jalaluddin Balkhi-Rumi’s father. Some historians consider the Bahauddin Monastery to be Rumi’s birthplace. Due to its historical significance, the monastery annually attracts hundreds of domestic and international tourists. Click here to read more (external link).
Amid Taliban Control, Takhar Residents Face Escalating Insecurity and Armed Crime
8am: Over the past three years, the Taliban have consistently claimed to have achieved nationwide security and eliminated criminal gangs and networks, often emphasizing these assertions to the global community and the people of Afghanistan. However, these claims occur amidst a significant rise in insecurity and armed robberies in Takhar province, causing serious concerns among its residents. Many residents of Takhar accuse the Taliban of failing to reduce armed robberies and ensure safety. They note that even after more than three years, a considerable number of the group’s members, particularly those referred to as Taliban police, do not wear military uniforms. This lack of uniformity complicates the distinction between their fighters and actual criminals. Click here to read more (external link).