AP: Online abuse and hate speech targeting politically active women in Afghanistan has significantly increased since the Taliban took over the country in Aug. 2021, according to a report released Monday by a U.K.-based rights group. Afghan Witness, an open-source project run by the non-profit Center for Information Resilience, says it found that abusive posts tripled, a 217% increase, between June-December 2021 and the same period of 2022. Click here to read more (external link).
Protesters Block Major Border Crossing Between Afghanistan And Pakistan
RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal
RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
November 20, 2023
Protesters in Pakistan have blocked a major border crossing with neighboring Afghanistan to protest against Islamabad’s refusal to allow document-free travel, which has hit traders and the local economy on both sides hard.
Late on November 19, protesters in Chaman, a border town in Pakistan’s southwestern Balochistan Province, blocked the gate connecting the town to Spin Boldak, a town in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar.
Speaking to RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal on November 20, Ghousullah Lagharee, the leader of a monthlong sit-in protest in Chaman, said the action would continue until Islamabad rescinds its decision to only allow people with valid travel documents to cross the border.
“We will continue this blocked until the government accepts our demands [to resume passport-free travel],” he said.
“We will announce further steps as this is blocked and the ongoing strike [in Chaman] continues,” he added.
Last month, Pakistan unilaterally ended the century-old “Easement Rights,” an arrangement that allowed members of some communities straddling the 19th-century Durand Line border to cross freely.
In Chaman, free movement across the border helped most residents earn a living by moving goods between the neighboring countries. Members of the Achakzai and Noorzai Pashtun tribes make up most residents on both sides of the border in the desolate desert region.
“The government restrictions have killed our livelihoods and made our people jobless,” said Faiz Mohammad, a local union leader in Chaman.
He said that at least 20,000 families in Chaman alone depended on document-free travel to trade with Afghanistan.
Attaullah, another leader of the protesters in Chaman, said they had been meeting senior civil and military officials in Balochistan’s capital, Quetta, and were now seeking an audience with senior government leaders in Islamabad.
“We hope to have our first meeting with them today or tomorrow,” he told Radio Mashaal on November 20.
Pakistani officials insist cross-border movement has to be regulated to improve security and control smuggling in the country.
Islamabad has blamed Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers for failing to prevent Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), which they say is a Taliban ally and shelters in Afghanistan, from launching attacks inside Pakistan and then retreating back across the border.
On November 8, caretaker Pakistani Prime Minister Anwar ul-Haq Kakar said terrorist attacks inside the country had increased by 60 percent since the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021. Since then, some 2,300 people have been killed in these attacks.
In early October, Islamabad announced November 1 as a deadline for more than 1.7 million “undocumented foreigners” to leave the country. In a nationwide crackdown after the expiry of the deadline, Pakistani police arrested thousands of Afghans and deported them.
Pakistani authorities said on November 20 that more than 400,000 Afghans had crossed into Afghanistan from Pakistan during the crackdown on migrants.
But in Chaman, protesters are adamant that they will not allow Islamabad to invoke security fears or budget woes to wipe out their livelihoods.
“Our people have awakened. Anybody who is thinking about laying a brick on the border must think hard first,” Lagharee told Radio Azadi.
Copyright (c) 2023. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.
Expulsion of Afghan Migrants from Pakistan: Taliban Resettling Majority in the Northern Provinces
Taliban militants dancing (file photo)
8am: Nearly three thousand expelled Afghan migrant families from Pakistan have relocated to the provinces of Jawzjan, Faryab, Sar-e Pol, and Samangan. According to sources, as per the Taliban’s directives, 1,300 families have moved to Jawzjan, 1,100 to Faryab, 410 to Sar-e Pol, and another 50 to Samangan. Residents of these provinces claim that the majority of these migrant families are related to members of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and inhabitants of the “Shamshato Refugee Camp” affiliated with the Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA).
A resident of the Mardyan district in Jawzjan province remarks, “The migrants who have recently arrived here from Pakistan cannot speak Persian and Uzbek.”
However, a former government security official states that the initial rule of the Taliban over Afghanistan suffered a blow in the northern and northeastern provinces of the country. Now, the group aims to alter the demographic makeup in the north to secure its continued governance.
Tolo News in Dari – November 19, 2023
Taliban Enforce New Restrictions on Wedding Celebrations in Samangan: No Cameras, No Music
8am: Local sources disclosed that the directive was issued during a meeting between Mullah Habibullah Hamas and wedding hall owners at the department’s headquarters on Sunday, November 19. Acting on the verbal guidance of Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, the Taliban’s Minister of Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the directive explicitly prohibits women from participating in photography and videography at wedding ceremonies. According to the announcement, the use of music at wedding ceremonies is strictly forbidden, and dancing and other festivities are not allowed. Click here to read more (external link).
Afghan Taliban Official’s Puzzling European Visit Stirs Controversy
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
November 18, 2023
ISLAMABAD — Germany confirmed Saturday that it has launched an investigation into an alleged unauthorized trip to the country by a senior member of Afghanistan’s Islamist Taliban regime.
The controversy erupted after Abdul Bari Omar, head of the Taliban-led food and medicine authority, appeared at a mosque in Cologne on Thursday, addressing an audience largely made up of Afghan expatriates.
The German Interior Ministry, on the X social media platform, condemned the appearance of Omar as “completely unacceptable,” saying Taliban members have no place in the country. It urgently sought clarification from the organizers, the Turkish-Islamic Union, or DITIB, on how the appearance came about.
“Nobody is allowed to offer radical Islamists a platform in Germany. The Taliban are responsible for massive human rights violations,” the ministry wrote. “The responsible authorities are investigating the case intensively.”
‘We are shocked’
The DITIB distanced itself from the event, saying it had only rented the space to a Cologne-based Afghan cultural association for a religious gathering and did not know the Taliban official had been invited.
“We are shocked by this incident,” the DITIB said in a Friday statement, insisting it “learned from the press” that the speaker was a Taliban representative.
“Contrary to contractual agreement, this turned into a political event to which a speaker unknown to us was invited,” it said. This constituted a “blatant breach of contract,” and the association has been banned from the premises, it added.
On Friday, the German foreign ministry said its official data shows that none of the country’s visa offices had issued a visa to Omar, nor was it informed about his visit. The ministry stressed in a statement posted on X that Germany does not recognize the Taliban government.
“As long as the Taliban in Afghanistan blatantly tramples on human rights, especially the rights of women and girls, there will be no normalization with the Taliban regime,” the ministry added.
Chief Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid confirmed Friday the presence of Omar in Germany by tweeting pictures from the controversial Thursday event.
“He encouraged the Afghan participants to return to the country and use their capital to contribute to the reconstruction and development of the country, telling them security has returned to the country,” Mujahid wrote.
The DITIB is reportedly the largest Sunni Muslim organization in Germany and is linked to the Turkish government.
Separately, the Dutch health and sports minister apologized Saturday for having his picture taken with Omar while both attended the Second World Local Production Forum in the Hague from November 6 to 8.
Ernst Kuipers wrote on X that he stands for human rights, particularly women’s rights, and does not want to associate himself with what he denounced as the “terrible” Taliban regime.
“I didn’t know who this person was at the time. This was a mistake, and it should not have happened, and I regret it,” he said. “We are investigating how this person was present at this conference.”
The hard-line Taliban reclaimed power in August 2021, when U.S.-led Western troops chaotically withdrew after nearly two decades of involvement in the Afghan war.
No foreign country has recognized the male-only Taliban regime mainly because it bans female education beyond the sixth grade in Afghanistan and bars women from most public and private sector workplaces, including the United Nations.
De facto Afghan authorities justify their governance, saying it is aligned with Afghan culture and Islamic law. They have rejected international criticism of the Taliban government and calls for removing sweeping restrictions on women.
Pakistan to deport illegal Afghan refugees by January: Official
Khaama: Balochistan Information Minister Jan Achakzai stated on Friday that Pakistan’s interim government plans to deport all illegal Afghan refugees by January next year. “The caretaker government is trying to deport all illegal Afghan immigrants by January. After that, the government would announce a time frame for repatriating the remaining Afghan immigrants,” Achakzai said at a press conference in Quetta. Click here to read more (external link).
Related
Afghanistan’s economy on brink of collapse: USIP
Ariana: The United States Institute of Peace (USIP) said in a report published on Friday that Afghanistan’s economy is on the verge of collapse. USIP said that most Afghan families are facing difficulties to meet their basic needs. Increasing return of migrants, restricting women’s work, and banning poppy cultivation without providing alternative crops for farmers are among key factors mentioned in the report as the reason for the deterioration of Afghanistan’s economic situation. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News in Dari – November 18, 2023
Open Letter from Former Government Military Personnel to the U.S. Congress: Support for an Alternative to the Taliban Regime
8am: In an open letter, more than five thousand former government military personnel implore the United States Congress to support the goal of “a gradual end to the death of Afghan citizens, especially women and former military personnel,” instead of endorsing the self-proclaimed Taliban regime, which claims to represent the will of the people. They appeal to the U.S. Congress to exert pressure on the Taliban for the “immediate release of former military personnel from Taliban prisons, cessation of massacres, detentions, and their torture.” Click here to read more (external link).