Ariana: Darwish Rasooli slammed a century as Afghanistan A defeated Oman by 44 runs in their second match of the tri-nation series in Oman on Monday. This is Afghanistan A’s second consecutive victory in the tri-nation series. They defeated Hong Kong by 7 wickets in their first match on Sunday. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News in Dari – October 13, 2024
Afghanistan A beat Hong Kong by 7 wickets in tri-series
Ariana: Karim Janat shined with the bat and ball as Afghanistan’s A cricket team defeated Hong Kong by seven wickets in their first match of a tri-nation series in Oman on Sunday. Afghanistan will play Oman in their next match of the series on Monday. Click here to read more (external link).
Afghanistan Drops Two Places in Global Hunger Index
Afghanistan International: According to the report, 30.4% of Afghanistan’s population is malnourished, and 5.8% of children die before reaching the age of five. Additionally, the report highlights that 44.6% of children under the age of five in Afghanistan suffer from stunted growth, a reflection of chronic malnutrition. Furthermore, 3.6% of children have a lower-than-expected weight for their height, signifying acute malnutrition. Under Taliban rule, the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan has escalated over the past three years. According to the United Nations, more than 24 million people currently require humanitarian assistance. Click here to read more (external link).
The Taliban’s Gift: Three Years of Destruction and Ruin
Taliban militants (file photo)
8am: The fall of Afghanistan to the extremist Taliban was a catastrophe that shattered the dreams and hopes of its people overnight. This group’s rise didn’t just bring suffering to women and girls; it unleashed destruction on the entire population, even impacting the soil and climate of Afghanistan. When asked how the past three years under Taliban rule have been, women and girls could fill volumes with stories of injustice, cruelty, humiliation, and the countless losses they’ve endured. These years have brought nothing but chains, killings, deprivation, and devastation. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News in Dari – October 12, 2024
In Afghanistan, The Taliban Wages War On Music
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.
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Tolo News in Dari – October 11, 2024