US aims to destabilize Afghanistan: Iranian Envoy

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Khaama: Hassan Kazemi-Qomi, Iran’s special representative in Kabul, believes that despite the U.S.’s clear failure in Afghanistan, they continue to try to destabilize the country and support terrorism, especially ISIS. Qomi made these statements on Tuesday, January 16th, during an interview with the IRNA news agency in Islamabad. He added, “The more Afghanistan moves toward instability and insecurity, we will witness a flood of Afghan refugees towards neighboring countries, including Iran. If Afghanistan’s economy worsens and poverty intensifies, we will see an increase in drug cultivation and recruitment of forces for terrorist groups like ISIS.” Click here to read more (external link).

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Hunger and Taliban Oppression: Humanitarian Aid Seized from the People of Nasay District, Badakhshan Province

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8am: In the last two years, there have been recurring allegations against the Taliban for seizing and diverting humanitarian aid in Afghanistan. The group manipulates recipient lists by shifting the names of their families, associates, and fighters, often resorting to force to retrieve distributed humanitarian assistance from the people in various regions. Confirming these reports, sources in Nasay Darwaz district of Badakhshan province reveal that about a month ago, Taliban fighters forcefully reclaimed funds distributed by an organization during the night. The Taliban, through their local enforcers, threatened residents, insisting that the aid they received was earmarked for relocation elsewhere. Under this pressure, locals are coerced into returning the aid. Furthermore, Nasay district residents claim that the Taliban forcibly seized funds meant for teachers, designating them as an aid for the “mujahideen,” affiliated fighters with the group. Click here to read more (external link).

Afghan Women Accuse Taliban Of Torture And Extortion Amid Dress Code Crackdown

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Taliban militants (file photo)

By Khujasta Kabiri
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
January 16, 2024

The Taliban’s notorious religious police have detained scores of Afghan women and girls in recent weeks for allegedly violating the extremist group’s Islamic dress code.

Among them was Zahra’s younger sister, who was detained in the capital, Kabul, in early January for allegedly failing to cover herself from head to toe in public.

“My sister was humiliated and tortured while in Taliban custody,” Zahra, whose name has been changed to protect her identity, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi. “They told her that she was an infidel because she wore tight clothes.”

Zahra said her family was forced to pay Taliban officials nearly $12,000 in bribes to secure her release.

The Taliban’s crackdown on women who allegedly violate the hard-line Islamist group’s dress code is the latest blow to Afghan women. Since seizing power in 2021, the Taliban has severely curtailed women’s right to work and study, and imposed restrictions on their appearances and freedom of movement.

In May 2022, the Taliban ordered all women to wear the all-encompassing burqa or an Islamic abaya robe and niqab that covers the hair, body, and most of the face in public. The latter is common in the Arab Gulf states.

Afghan women, especially those in urban areas, consider the burqa and niqab to be alien to Afghan culture. Before the Taliban’s return to power, many women wore loose head scarves that only concealed their hair.

The Taliban’s enforcement of the dress code was sporadic and uneven across the country. But activists say that since the turn of the year, the group has intensified the enforcement of the law.

‘Going Through Agony’

Masuda Kohistani, a women’s rights activist in Kabul, said the Taliban has even targeted women and girls wearing the hijab, a headscarf that covers the hair and neck, but leaves the face visible.

Kohistani said she witnessed members of the Taliban’s religious police detaining a 20-year-old woman in the suburb of Khairkhana in northern Kabul who was wearing a hijab.

“The shopkeepers attempted to argue with the Taliban by pointing out that she was observing the hijab, but the militants beat them up,” Kohistani told Radio Azadi. “Her family is going through agony. They don’t know what to do as they struggle to find her.”

The Taliban’s religious police is overseen by the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, which is responsible for enforcing the Taliban’s morality laws, including its strict dress code and gender segregation in society.

A young woman, who requested anonymity for fear of retribution, told Radio Azadi that the Taliban on January 3 detained several women in Dasht-e Barchi, a neighborhood in Kabul where many are members of the Shi’ite Hazara minority. She said she escaped arrest after an older man told her to hide.

“He told me to run towards my house because the Taliban had just arrested several women in the neighborhood,” she said.

Mina Rafiq, a women’s rights activist in Kabul, said the Taliban’s crackdown began in Kabul but has expanded to other parts of the country, including the central province of Daikundi, the western province of Herat, and the northern provinces of Balkh, Kunduz, and Takhar.

“Now, we are not even allowed to choose the clothes we wear,” she told Radio Azadi. “How will they ever allow us to get an education or speak freely?”

It is unclear exactly how many women have been detained in recent weeks.

‘Demeaning And Dangerous’

The United Nations and global rights watchdogs have condemned the Taliban’s latest clampdown on women.

“The Taliban’s dress-code crackdown and arbitrary arrests is a further violation of women’s freedom of movement and expression in Afghanistan,” Amnesty International said on January 14. “The crackdown must immediately be ceased, and those detained released.”

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said on January 11 that it was looking into claims of mistreatment of women and extortion in exchange for their release.

“Enforcement measures involving physical violence are especially demeaning and dangerous for Afghan women and girls,” said Roza Otunbayeva, UN special envoy and head of the mission.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the chief Taliban spokesman, dismissed UNAMA’s concerns.

“Afghan women wear the hijab on their own,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. “Neither have they been forced to do so, nor has the ministry of vice and virtue mistreated them.”

Afghan activists said the crackdown is another major blow to women, who have been effectively erased from public life.

“The situation for women in Afghanistan is becoming worse every day,” said Ruqiya Saee, a women’s rights activist in Kabul.

Written by Abubakar Siddique based on reporting by Khujasta Kabiri of RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi.

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.

After Failed Talks, Busiest Border Crossing Between Afghanistan And Pakistan Remains Shut

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Torkham border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan

RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal
January 16, 2024

Taliban and Pakistani officials have failed to agree on reopening the busiest border crossing between Afghanistan and Pakistan following its closure last week after Islamabad imposed a requirement for passports and visas for Afghan drivers.

“Yesterday, our meeting with the Pakistani border officials ended without bearing any results, and the gate remains closed,” Mullah Adil, the spokesman for the Taliban governor in Nangarhar, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi on January 16.

The Torkham border crossing links Pakistan’s western Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province to Nangahar, an eastern Afghan province, through the historic Khyber Pass.

Khan Jan Alekozai, a senior official of the Afghanistan-Pakistan Joint Chamber of Commerce, says the border closure is causing huge commercial losses in both countries.

“Up to 400 vehicles on both sides are carrying oranges and tangerines, damaging farmers and businesses in both countries,” he said.

Stranded truckers say they have no food or water to wash themselves and are urging Islamabad to show some leniency.

“I am carrying potatoes which will rot soon,” Abdul Wali told Radio Mashaal. “They should at least allow the stranded trucks carrying perishable food.”

Alekozai added that Islamabad has also shut the minor border crossing of Dand-e Pathan and Kharlachi, Ghulam Khan. Angor Adda and Chaman, the second-largest border crossing, has been shut for over two months.

The Torkham border crossing closure follows a visit last week to Kabul by senior Pakistani Islamist politician Maulana Fazlur Rehman. His weeklong visit, which included a meeting with the Taliban’s supreme leader in Afghanistan, Haibatullah Akhundzada, was an attempt to revive strained ties between the erstwhile allies.

Since October, Pakistan has expelled more than half a million undocumented Afghans over the Taliban’s failure to rein in the Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also called the Pakistani Taliban. Islamabad blames the group for escalating attacks on security forces and accuses the Taliban-led government of giving TTP militants shelter. Pakistani officials claim TTP attacks have killed more than 2,000 Pakistanis since the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021.

Pakistan is seeking to unilaterally impose regulated cross-border movement on Afghans and ethnic Pashtuns living along the shared 19th-century Durand Line border between the two countries.

The move has been met by intense backlash from Kabul and the Pashtun minority communities affected by the border closure.

Angor Adda and Birmal, a smaller border crossing linking Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Lower South Waziristan district to Afghanistan’s southeastern province of Paktika, has been intermittently shut for more than two months.

Members of the local Ahmadzai Wazir tribe, who live on both side of the border, are demanding unrestricted travel and improved trade facilities.

Islamabad’s new policy to rescind their century-old rights to cross the border using just their identity documents has rattled other Pashtun communities.

In Chaman, hundreds of thousands of traders and porters have been protesting the imposition of travel documents since October 21. Chaman is a town in the southwestern Balochistan Province, and it borders the Afghan town of Spin Boldak in the southern province of Kandahar.

Ghosullah, a protest leader in Chaman, says they will turn their sit-in protest into a hunger strike if Islamabad fails to meet their demands by January 31.

But Jan Achakzai, the provincial information minister in Balochistan, said Islamabad will implement its decision requiring everyone crossing the Afghanistan-Pakistan border to have travel documents.

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.

Kidnapping Women: Taliban’s Shameful Tactic to Humiliate Society

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8am: In the male-dominated Afghan society, if a man intends to demean another, he targets the honor of his relatives, primarily women. Everyday insults in the city and markets exemplify this approach. With this understanding, the Taliban now resort to abducting and torturing women, sometimes accompanied by sexual assault, to further humiliate society. This is done to instill more fear, hoping to suppress the calm yet continuous resistance within the community against Taliban oppression. The abduction and torture of women aim to coerce people into greater fear, prompting a subdued yet persistent opposition to the Taliban, and dissuading protesting women from overt resistance. This is an inhumane tactic employed for managing a society, as extremist and radical groups believe the end justifies the means, resorting to any form of action to control society through the propagation of fear. Extortion from women abducted by the Taliban serves another purpose for the group. Women captured by the Taliban report being tortured in Taliban prisons. After providing proof of ownership documents, they are forced to pay money to Taliban fighters and their commanders to be transferred from these prisons to larger ones, commonly known as Afghanistan. Click here to read more (external link).

Life under Taliban rule

 

UNICEF Wants More Aid For Children Affected By Earthquake In Western Afghanistan

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By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
January 15, 2024

UNICEF, the UN’s aid and relief organization for children, has called for greater support for the nearly 100,000 children affected by the October earthquakes in the western Afghan province of Herat.

In a January 15 statement marking 100 days since the first earthquake on October 7, UNICEF said that the tremors killed more than 1,000 people and destroyed 21,000 homes, severely impacting the livelihoods of countless people in several Herat districts.

“To make matters worse, Herat Province is now gripped by a harsh winter, threatening lives and slowing efforts to rebuild,” the statement said.

Fran Equiza, UNICEF representative in Afghanistan, said villages that bore the brunt of the tremors were still suffering 100 days later.

“UNICEF is concerned about the survival of 96,000 children affected by the earthquakes if we are not able to provide the services they need to recover,” he said, while appealing for more aid quickly.

Equiza said schools and health centers in the affected region were damaged beyond repair or had been destroyed completely.

“Children are still trying to cope with the loss and trauma,” he added.

Equiza said nighttime freezing temperatures were now threatening the lives of children and their families.

Most residents affected by the tremors still live in tents, which are difficult to heat.

In Zindah Jan, one of the Herat districts most affected by the earthquakes, many require urgent humanitarian support to survive through the winter.

Gholam Ali, a resident of Naib Rafi village in Zindah Jan, said his children are sick because they live in an unheated tent.

“No one pays attention to us, no one even sees us,” he told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi.

“My children shiver from the cold because we have no stove, firewood, or coal,” he added. “We have no warm clothes and blankets.”

During the past week, Afghan philanthropists have distributed hundreds of houses they built in Herat. But the needs of those displaced by the tremors far exceed the supply of new housing units.

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.

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In the new Afghanistan, it’s sell your daughter or starve

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WP: Across Afghanistan, child marriages have skyrocketed, and not only because of economic collapse. Families once hoped that their daughters, when educated, might find good work and contribute to the family income. Today, under the Taliban’s ever-increasing restrictions, school is prohibited for girls after the sixth grade, and work options for women are few. Click here to read more (external link).