The Taliban’s Blanket Amnesty Strategy: Over 200 Detained in the Past Two Months
Taliban fighters (file photo)
8am: From May to July 2023, the Taliban detained around 200 individuals in different provinces for various charges. Among those held were 14 former military personnel, 70 elderly members of ethnic communities, one human rights activist, two journalists, two teachers, one comedian, three religious scholars, one attorney, and two guards of political and business figures. Additionally, 40 individuals were accused of listening to music, 30 of gambling, six were family members of a former parliament representative, 12 were alleged members of the National Resistance Front (NRF), and five were detained for resisting the Kuchis. These are just some of the individuals arrested by the Taliban during these months. Moreover, there have been numerous other citizens detained on various charges. It is important to note that the numbers mentioned in this report are based solely on media reports, and the actual number of detainees may be higher. Many of the arrests made by the Taliban are not being publicized due to security concerns raised by the families of the detainees. Click here to read more (external link).
Rashid Khan pulls out of Hundred on eve of tournament
Rashid Khan
Ariana: The Hundred has lost its most high-profile male overseas player on the eve of the tournament, with Rashid Khan pulling out of a planned three-match stint with Trent Rockets, ESPNcricinfo reported. Rashid has been playing for MI New York in Major League Cricket, taking 3 for 9 in the inaugural final against Seattle Ocras in Dallas on Sunday night, but has officially withdrawn due to an unspecified “injury”. Click here to read more (external link).
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U.S. Delegation Presses Taliban On Human Rights At Doha Meeting
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
August 1, 2023
U.S. officials has urged the Taliban to reverse policies responsible for the deteriorating human rights situation in Afghanistan, particularly for women and girls, during talks in Doha, Qatar, the State Department said on July 31.
The U.S. Special Representative for Afghanistan Thomas West, along with Rina Amiri, the special envoy for Afghan women, girls, and human rights, and the chief of the Doha-based U.S. Mission to Afghanistan, Karen Decker, led the U.S. delegation to talks held on July 30-31 with Taliban representatives and other Afghan government officials.
“U.S. officials identified areas for confidence building in support of the Afghan people,” the State Department said in a statement.
At the same time the delegation expressed “deep concern regarding the humanitarian crisis and the need to continue to support aid organizations and UN bodies delivering assistance consistent with humanitarian principles.”
U.S. officials also expressed grave concern regarding detentions, media crackdowns, and limits on religious practice, while backing the Afghan people’s demands for their rights to be respected and for their voices to shape the future of the country, the statement said.
They also pressed for the immediate and unconditional release of detained U.S. citizens, noting that these detentions were a significant obstacle to positive engagement.
The Taliban seized power in August 2021, bringing back the hard-line movement nearly 20 years after it was toppled by the U.S. invasion following the attacks of September 11, 2001. The international community has not recognized the Taliban-led government and has limited engagement with its leaders.
A major impediment has been the rights of women and girls, which Taliban leaders have severely restricted, particularly in the areas of education and employment, despite initial pledges to protect them.
The U.S. officials met representatives of the Afghan Central Bank and Afghan Ministry of Finance in Doha to discuss the state of the Afghan economy and the challenges that the banking sector faces.
The U.S. officials noted recent data indicating declining inflation and growth in trade in 2023 and voiced openness to a technical dialogue regarding economic stabilization issues. They also noted the Taliban’s continuing commitment to not allow the territory of Afghanistan to be used by anyone to threaten the United States and its allies.
The State Department said the American delegation acknowledged that there has been a decrease in large-scale terrorist attacks against Afghan civilians and that there have been reports indicating that the Taliban’s ban on opium poppy cultivation resulted in a significant decrease in cultivation during the most recent growing season.
The U.S. officials, however, registered serious concerns regarding the continuing trafficking and sale of processed opiates and synthetic drugs, even as they voiced openness to continue dialogue on counter-narcotics.
With reporting by Reuters
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.
Related
Afghan Economic, Anti-Drug Gains Noted During US-Taliban Talks
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
July 31, 2023
ISLAMABAD — The United States said Monday that it had urged Afghanistan’s Taliban in the latest round of bilateral talks to reverse policies responsible for the deteriorating human rights situation in the country, particularly for women, girls and vulnerable communities, while praising economic and counternarcotics gains the country has made under the de facto rulers.
The two-day discussions between the former battlefield adversaries occurred in Doha, Qatar, with U.S. special Afghan representative Tom West and Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi leading their respective delegations.
The United States “expressed grave concern regarding detentions, media crackdowns and limits on religious practice” since the Taliban seized power in Kabul, said a post-meeting U.S. statement. The U.S. side backed the Afghan people’s demands for their rights to be respected and for their voices to shape the future of Afghanistan.
The statement said, without elaborating, that the U.S. side “identified areas for confidence building in support of the Afghan people.”
The American delegation also met with leaders from Afghanistan’s central bank, known as Da Afghanistan Bank, or DAB, and finance ministry representatives to discuss the state of the economy and the challenges facing the country’s banking sector.
The U.S. officials noted “recent data indicating declining inflation, growth of merchandise exports and imports in Afghanistan in 2023, and voiced openness to a technical dialogue regarding economic stabilization issues soon.”
Taliban efforts to fulfill security commitments also figured in the discussions, with the U.S. side noting the de facto Afghan leaders’ “continuing commitment” to prevent the use of Afghan territory by anyone to threaten the United States and its allies.
“The American delegation acknowledged that there has been a decrease in large-scale terrorist attacks against Afghan civilians,” the statement said. U.S. officials pressed Taliban delegates for the immediate and unconditional release of detained American citizens, warning that the detentions were a “significant obstacle to positive engagement.”
The U.S. officials voiced “openness” to continue dialogue with the Taliban on counternarcotics and “took note of reporting indicating that the Taliban’s ban on opium poppy cultivation resulted in a significant decrease in cultivation during the most recent growing season.”
Earlier, the Taliban-led Afghan foreign ministry, in a statement, said that Muttaqi and his team had stressed the need for Washington to remove travel restrictions on Taliban leaders, end economic sanctions against the strife-torn country and unfreeze Afghan central bank foreign funds. It added that human rights issues also came under discussion.
“IEA reiterated that it was crucial for confidence building that blacklists and reward lists be removed and [the central bank] reserves be unfrozen so that Afghans can establish an economy unreliant on foreign aid,” the English-language Taliban statement asserted.
The Taliban calls its male-only government in Kabul the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, or IEA. The group waged a deadly insurgency for almost 20 years against U.S.-led NATO troops and the now-defunct Afghan government before seizing power in August 2021.
Bounties on dozen-plus
More than a dozen key Taliban leaders remain on a U.S. list of most-wanted men and carry millions of dollars of bounties on their heads for their roles in directing attacks against American troops.
The U.S. and other Western nations collectively froze more than $9 billion in Afghan central bank foreign reserves immediately after the Taliban takeover to block their access to the funds. They also imposed financial and banking sector sanctions on the country.
Washington has since transferred half of the $7 billion in frozen resources held in the U.S. to a trust fund in Switzerland to be used strictly for Afghan humanitarian efforts.
The Taliban have rejected the fund, demanding the entire amount be returned to the DAB. The U.S. has since eased some of the banking sector curbs to support humanitarian operations in war-ravaged Afghanistan and enable private citizens to receive salaries to support their families.
“Removal of most of the restrictions on Afghan banks leading to easy transactions was considered a positive development,” the Taliban statement said Monday.
The fundamentalist leaders have imposed their strict interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia, to govern impoverished Afghanistan, banning women and girls from education beyond about a sixth-grade level. They have barred women from most employment and visiting public places such as parks, gyms and bathhouses.
The U.N. and other aid agencies also have been banned from hiring female Afghan staff, undermining humanitarian operations in a country where more than 28 million people need food aid.
No foreign government has recognized the Taliban administration over human rights concerns.
Washington and the world have denounced restrictions on Afghan women, demanding the Taliban reverse them if they want their government to be formally recognized and sanctions be lifted.
As Taliban Attempts To Exert Greater Control Over Aid, Afghans Worry Over Declining Assistance
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
July 31, 2023
Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers are seeking to exercise greater control over international assistance operations by imposing bans and restrictions on aid groups even as the country suffers from one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
In a new report, the research group Afghanistan Analysts Network looked into why the Taliban has imposed restrictions on aid groups and the hard-line government’s attitude towards aid operations and the aid workers implementing them.
Over the past year, the Taliban has banned Afghan women from working for international nongovernmental organizations and most aid groups. It also has ordered all internationally funded education projects to be handed over to its Education Ministry.
Earlier this month, the militant rulers also suspended all Swedish-funded aid projects in what the group said was its response to the burning of the Islamic holy book, the Koran, in Stockholm.
“The Taliban’s increasingly restrictive stance suggests the environment will not become easier any time soon,” the report, released on July 30, concludes.
Written by Sabawoon Samim and Ashley Jackson, the report recommends that aid groups interested in continuing their work in Afghanistan should consider “investing in improving relations with the Taliban and trying to change the authorities’ perceptions of aid actors,” adding this should be “an urgent priority.”
According to the United Nations, Afghanistan is one of the worst humanitarian crises globally. More than 29 million Afghans, or over two-thirds of the country’s estimated 40 million people, need humanitarian assistance.
A rapid economic collapse after the pullout of international troops in August 2021, environmental disasters, and the gradual loss of international humanitarian aid has pushed millions toward starvation.
“We are hungry, and we are worried. If aid does not reach us, we will all be dead,” said Hussain, whose family of seven survived because of the two bags of flour an international NGO gave him last month.
No country has officially recognized the Taliban-led government, which has been widely criticized for human rights abuses, severe restrictions of women’s rights, and discrimination against ethnic minorities.
International concerns about the Taliban’s marginalization of women and girls, and other human rights abuses, have further suppressed aid flows.
“I have been sitting here for 10 days and no work,” says Khurd Agha.
“I can only buy bread for my family when I have some money,” the father of seven told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi.
The Taliban has been at loggerheads with international aid groups for months. In December, the group banned Afghan women from working for local and foreign NGOs, leading major organizations to halt or reduce their operations, including emergency food distribution, health-care services, and education. In April, the ban was expanded to include the UN.
Later that month, international donors and aid agencies suspended their operations in three Afghan provinces after accusing the Taliban of attempting to divert or manipulate aid distribution.
In June, the UN revised its annual aid budget for Afghanistan from $4.6 billion to $3.2 billion this year, citing reduced funding from international donors.
Abdul Fattah Javad, an Afghan aid worker, says he is deeply anxious in Kabul. His country cannot freely trade because of sanctions on the Taliban’s unrecognized government, while moves hindering access to aid bite even further.
“The reduction of international aid would have a regrettable effect on the lives of Afghans,” he 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.
WHO: Afghanistan, Pakistan Close to Eradicating Polio
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
July 31, 2023
ISLAMABAD — Afghanistan and Pakistan have reported a very small number of polio infections in their region this year, fueling expectations the neighboring countries could be just months away from interrupting the endemic transmission of the crippling virus.
Pakistani authorities have reported a three-year-old child with paralytic polio, the only case in the country in the first seven months of 2023 compared to 20 cases last year.
Afghan health officials have confirmed five cases of polio paralysis in children, which is an increase from two reported infections in 2022.
“Pakistan and Afghanistan have never been this close to reaching the goal of eradicating wild poliovirus (WPV1) concurrently,” said Dr. Hamid Jafari, the World Health Organization’s director of polio eradication for the eastern Mediterranean region.
“And both countries need to reach this goal together – with the full support of the political, administrative, and security apparatus — if we are to finally eradicate wild poliovirus from the world,” Jafari told VOA in written comments.
Out of the 34 Afghan provinces, poliovirus transmission is limited to two eastern provinces, Nangarhar and Kunar, bordering Pakistan. According to official data, all five WPV1 cases detected this year are in Nangarhar.
“Immunity gaps, resulting from significant disruption of immunization campaigns during 2021 and 2022, have left children in the region at risk of polio and other vaccine-preventable diseases,” Jafari said.
Before the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021, Islamist militants routinely attacked health volunteers who fanned out across the country to administer vaccines. In October 2021, the Taliban backed a WHO vaccination campaign in Afghanistan, enabling the polio program to resume nationwide immunizations later that year.
It has since reached millions of children in the south and other regions of the country who had not received immunizations for at least four years, Jafari noted. He added that the Afghan vaccination program has also increased the number of site testing for poliovirus in wastewater, allowing timely detection and response, Jafari said.
“The quality of vaccination campaigns has improved remarkably since late 2022 in the east region of Afghanistan, and if such quality campaigns are sustained, endemic transmission in the region will be interrupted in the coming months,” said the senior WHO official.
“Cross-border coordination with Pakistan will continue to be essential throughout 2023 given the circulation of WPV1 on both sides of the border and the large population movement between the two countries,” Jafari stated.
He said that the “last mile” had always proven to be the most challenging phase of any national effort to interrupt polio transmission.
Pakistan
Since January 2021, all reported cases in Pakistan, a country of about 230 million people, have been from seven polio-endemic districts in the southern area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province out of 171 districts nationwide.
Despite detections of poliovirus in wastewater samples in other Pakistani districts, circulation has yet to be established outside the seven endemic districts.
“This is the result of very effective outbreak responses in each affected district outside the seven endemic districts,” Jafari said. He added that the polio program in Pakistan was “capitalizing on the momentum of recent success and continues to strive for zero polio.”
On Tuesday, Pakistan will launch its latest vaccination campaign to eliminate the highly contagious virus in a country where the disease paralyzed approximately 20,000 children in the early 1990s.
A polio program spokesperson told VOA the campaign aims to immunize nearly 8 million children under five across 61 districts in two phases. He said the government had deployed around 65,000 “front-line workers” to administer polio drops to the targeted population.
Pakistan has repeatedly come close to eradicating polio, but long-running propaganda in conservative rural areas that the vaccines cause sterility in children, coupled with deadly militant attacks on vaccinators, have set back the mission. Anti-state militants allege polio vaccinators gather intelligence on their hideouts.
The global polio eradication program identifies Pakistan, Afghanistan, parts of Somalia, and Yemen as areas where outbreaks are difficult to control.
Other Health News
The Taliban’s Scorched Land Policy in Shamali and Our Collective Amnesia
8am: This tragic event unfolded when the Shamali fighters successfully trapped the Taliban army in their region, inflicting significant damage on their war machinery and causing substantial casualties among their ranks during prolonged and intense clashes. The attacking forces, comprised of both local and foreign fighters armed with advanced weaponry, subsequently engaged in widespread acts of revenge upon capturing these territories. They were involved in a massacre, deliberately setting fire to harvest stacks and forests, causing explosions in water channels, destroying farmland, forcing people to migrate, and ultimately eradicating all forms of life in the area. During this relatively short period, numerous heartbreaking incidents occurred, although they have been poorly documented and recorded. The recurring question that arises when reviewing and revisiting these events is why the Taliban’s crimes received little discussion and why no institution took the initiative to document the tragic events of that year. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News in Dari – July 31, 2023
Media Under Siege: Taliban Arrest Three Journalists While Covering Fire Incident in Balkh
8am: According to the sources cited by Hasht-e Subh, the journalists were detained on Monday, July 31, in Mazar-e-Sharif, the center of Balkh province. Since regaining control of Afghanistan, the Taliban have been severely interfering with the media and journalists, occasionally resorting to arrests, beatings, and imprisonment. This incident follows the detention of a local journalist in Nangarhar by the Taliban last month. Click here to read more (external link).