Taliban Secrecy Obscures Afghanistan’s Economic Reality

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Michael Hughes: A newly-released World Bank assessment suggests economic conditions in Afghanistan are improving just as UN agencies are warning that the country is on the verge of “systemic collapse.” Making the dilemma even more mysterious is the Taliban’s lack of transparency – for if business is booming, why isn’t the cash flowing to those in need?

The World Bank’s latest Afghanistan Economic Monitor report, dated January 25, claims that inflation is down, exports are up, the Afghani is stabilizing, while most food and non-food items remain “widely available.”

Some have suggested that the Taliban are less corrupt than the previous Ghani administration – which, in fact, is not saying much. However, even if the Taliban have streamlined operations a bit and business is expanding, it is practically impossible to trace the revenue stream. A large portion of revenue derives from taxes collected at the border and the coal mining royalties, but what happens to the inflow seems a mystery to most Afghans living below the poverty line. And lord knows what the true figures are in terms of private investment.

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Afghan cartoonist, now a refugee, sheds light on plight of women

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Al Jazeera: Sayed Muhammad Hussainy says it is his duty to help strengthen the voices of women living under the Taliban’s rule. When the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, thousands of Afghans fled the country fearing curbs on freedoms. Cartoonist Sayed Muhammad Hussainy was one of them. The 29-year-old artist, who has taken refuge in Germany, said he feared the Taliban would target him for working with the previous West-backed government of President Ashraf Ghani. Click here to read more (external link).

Mujahid: Previous Govt Opposed to Intra-Afghan Dialogue

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Pompeo (front-left), and Ghani (back-right). File photo.

Tolo News: The current government’s spokesperson, Zabiullah Mujahid, said that the Islamic Emirate [Taliban] was forced to take military action after being disappointed with the progress of the negotiations. These comments were made following the publication of a book by Mike Pompeo’s, the former US secretary of state. Mike Pompeo, the former secretary of state for the United States, in his book referred to Ashraf Ghani, the former president of Afghanistan, as a “total fraud” and accused him of wasting humanitarian help provided by the US to the Afghan people. Click here to read more (external link).

Taliban to Set Guidelines on Women’s Aid Work in Afghanistan: UN

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Ariana: The acting Afghan authorities told a top UN official that they plan to draw new rules to let women in Afghanistan work in a few humanitarian operations. While talking to the BBC, Martin Griffiths said that the Taliban officials he spoke with in Kabul had given him “encouraging comments” even though the government has not yet lifted the restrictions on Afghan women working for NGOs. Concerns have been raised that the prohibition may jeopardize important life-saving humanitarian activities in the country because Afghan women are essential in delivering aid. Click here to read more (external link).

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Protests Held Across Afghanistan Over Desecration of Holy Quran in Europe

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Tolo News: Thousands of people across the country have held protests after the burning and tearing of the Quran in Sweden and the Netherlands, respectively. Earlier, Rasmus Paludan, who leads the Danish far-right political party Hard Line burned a copy of the Holy Quran in front of Turkey’s embassy in Stockholm, Sweden. After these incidents, the leader of the extremist anti-Islam group Pegida in the Netherlands, Edwin Wagensfeld, tore up pages and burned another copy of the Holy Quran in the city of Den Haag, under the protection of the Dutch police, according to the international media. Click here to read more (external link).

‘I’m Sitting Here Praying To God’: Deadly Cold Plunges Afghanistan’s Humanitarian Crisis To A New Low

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By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
January 26, 2023

Sharafuddin stands on the side of a road in Afghanistan’s western city of Herat, fighting off his pangs of hunger with sheer determination to score enough work or food to get his family through another day.

It was already an exhaustive daily ritual amid the relentless economic and humanitarian crises that have besieged Afghanistan, but a deadly cold snap has left the 35-year-old father of three praying for survival.

“During the cold nights, we are awake with our children and cannot sleep,” the Herat resident says as he tries to warm his hands with his breath. “It is already midday, and I have neither had breakfast nor drank tea. Since the morning I have only earned 20 afghanis ($0.22) and I’m sitting here praying to God.”

The severe cold that arrived on January 10 has been brutal, worse than any winter that locals in the city can recall, and has compounded the difficulties faced by Afghans around the country.

In just over two weeks, at least 158 people and well over 70,000 farm animals have succumbed to the unprecedentedly low temperatures, according to the Taliban government, and officials are bracing for a higher death toll as remote areas dig out from heavy snowfall.

The central province of Ghor has experienced the lowest temperatures, with Afghanistan’s Meteorological Department saying the thermometer dipped to minus 34 degrees Celsius.

Deaths have been reported in 24 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, Abdul Rahman Zahid, a director with the Taliban’s State Affairs Ministry, said in a video message to RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi on January 25.

Electricity outages in many areas, including the capital, Kabul, have compounded the problem, while soaring prices for coal, firewood, and other fuels have left many Afghans with no heat. As many as 5,000 children have been hospitalized in the past week alone, according to the Taliban’s Health Ministry.

Temperatures are expected to warm in the coming weeks, but the situation has prompted Zahid to call on the United Nations and donor countries to provide more humanitarian aid to help vulnerable Afghans.

‘To Eat Or To Buy Heat’

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) projected this week that 28.3 million people will require humanitarian assistance this year.

Even before the Taliban seized power in 2021, Afghans were struggling from the effects of successive droughts and other natural disasters, as well as insecurity that pushed many from their homes and onto the streets or to crowded refugee settlements where they were at greater risk of contracting diseases.

Under Taliban rule, the country has faced even more challenges, including earthquakes, floods, drought, and rising unemployment and prices. The militant group, isolated and unrecognized by the global community due to its human rights abuses, has also had to deal with the loss or disruption of much of the international aid that Afghanistan depended on.

Aid organizations were bracing for the worst even before winter arrived, with the International Red Cross (ICRC) underscoring the troubling trend of rising disease and hunger among children.

“Afghan families face an impossible choice: to eat or to buy heat,” ICRC director of operations Martin Schuepp said during a visit to Afghanistan in November. “And, really, they can’t afford either, resulting in a frightening rise in malnutrition and pneumonia cases.”

The ICRC at the time described the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan as “alarming,” predicting that 24 million Afghans — more than half the population — would require humanitarian assistance and estimating that 20 million were “acutely food insecure.”

Saying that “aid organizations can’t answer all the overwhelming cries for help,” Scheupp called on states and development agencies to return to Afghanistan to help.

But the distribution of aid has since become even more complicated, after the Taliban decided in December to bar women from working for local and international NGOs.

Following her visit to Kabul the same month, UN Women Executive Director Sima Bahous said that, by barring women from contributing to aid organizations, “the Taliban has in effect suspended aid for half the population of Afghanistan.”

Last week, a top delegation of UN women officials met with the Taliban’s leadership and pleaded with the government to “put the good of the country first.”

Help cannot come quickly enough for Afghans like Khair Mohammad, a resident of Herat who told Radio Azadi that he is struggling to provide for his family.

“Every day we face this cold weather, but there is no work,” the 48-year-old father of six said. “There is nothing left to eat. Rice and flour for one night and no more. In this cold weather, life is very difficult.”

World Bank: Afghan Revenue Collection, Exports Remain Strong

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Ayaz Gul
VOA News
January 26, 2023

ISLAMABAD — The World Bank has delivered a surprisingly upbeat assessment of the Afghan economy in the first nine months of the fiscal year 2022, citing high exports, a stable exchange rate and strong revenue collection under Taliban rule.

The report stands in stark contrast to regular reports from U.N. agencies and NGOs of near-universal poverty and widespread hunger in the country since the Taliban takeover in August 2022 led to a cutoff of most international aid.

That and the strict enforcement of international sanctions on Taliban leaders and isolation of the Afghan banking sector had pushed the war-ravaged economy to the brink, but effective anti-corruption efforts and other measures seem to have enabled the Islamist rulers to contain the downward slide.

The World Bank assessment released this week noted that inflationary pressure has eased since July of last year, decelerating by half to 9.1 % in November, while most basic food and non-food items remain widely available. The report attributed the decline in inflation to lower global oil and food prices, along with a stable exchange rate.

In what may be a peace dividend from the end of fighting in the country, Afghanistan exported $1.7 billion worth of goods, an increase of approximately 90% compared to the full year 2021, the bank reported. Pakistan, with 65%, and India, with 20%, remain the two main export destinations for Afghan vegetable products, mineral products, and textiles.

The report noted that up-to-date import data was unavailable, but the January-June 2022 data shows the country imported $2.9 billion of goods. Neighboring Pakistan, China, and Iran are identified as the main import origins.

The World Bank assessment said revenue collection had remained strong, reaching $1.54 billion between March and December 2022, in line with 2020 results.

A major chunk of the revenues came from taxes collected at borders and non-tax sources. A rise in coal mining royalties and fees likely drives the increase in Afghan ministries’ revenue, the report found.

In other findings, the World Bank report said nominal and real wages rose slightly in December. It noted that most Afghan civil servants have received salaries regularly, with women reporting they are being paid more regularly than men over the last two months. The civil servants say in the survey the key challenges when trying to withdraw their salaries are the banks are crowded and short of cash, which makes it difficult for them to deal with on a regular basis.

The bank did not address recent reporting from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, which said that 97% of Afghans live in poverty, two-thirds of the population need aid to survive, and 20 million people face acute hunger.

But Afghan analyst Torek Farhadi, a former adviser for the World Bank and the IMF, said the economy “is limping along” because of the injection in cash of humanitarian aid by the United Nations.

“It maintains the value of the Afghani [local currency] as U.S. dollars are converted into the Afghani currency in the Kabul exchange market,” he told VOA in written comments. “The U.N. aid has been able to maintain the status quo.”

Farhadi noted the country continues to face difficulty in attracting foreign investment, at least in part because the Afghan private sector has been suffering from a lack of transparency about Taliban economic policies.

“Private investment requires a climate free of pressure,” he emphasized. “Nobody dares to make long-term investment plans as Taliban trade and investment legal framework is non-published and unpredictable.” A thriving private sector is crucial to provide jobs to the educated Afghan youth to discourage them from leaving the country, Farhadi noted.

The Taliban have imposed their harsh interpretation of Islamic law to govern the country.

“Families with daughters also want to leave for countries where there is education if they can afford it. Afghanistan’s economy is depressed, and Taliban have difficulty creating confidence,” Farhadi said.

The Islamist rulers have excluded women from most areas of the workforce and banned them from using parks, gyms, and public bathhouses. They have barred girls from attending secondary schools beyond grade six.

Last month, the Taliban closed universities to female students until further notice, and they forbade women from working for national and international nongovernmental organizations.

The international community has refused to grant legitimacy to the de facto rulers over human rights concerns, mainly stemming from bans on women’s work and education.

The refusal by the Taliban to reverse the restrictions has prompted donor nations to withhold financial assistance and retain the economic sanctions, with exceptions for humanitarian aid.

Afghanistan’s population was estimated to pass 43 million in 2022, and a staggering 28.3 million people will need urgent humanitarian assistance this year in order to survive prolonged drought-like conditions, according to latest U.N. assessments.

Taliban Refill Afghan Jails

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Akmal Dawi
VOA News
January 26, 2023

Less than two years after releasing all prisoners held by the previous Afghan government, including suspected terrorists, the Taliban are rapidly refilling prisons with new inmates.

Over the past 18 months, de facto Taliban authorities detained more than 29,000 individuals on various charges such as theft, kidnapping, murder and moral crimes according to country’s top prison official.

“We have released some 15,000 inmates,” Mohammad Yusuf Mistari, the Taliban’s director of prisons, told VOA in WhatsApp messages. “Currently, there are approximately 14,000 inmates in the Islamic Emirate’s jails.”

Among the prisoners, up to 1,100 are women.

Taliban officials claim they have no political prisoners and that all the prisoners are held on criminal charges — a claim not confirmed by independent organizations.

But groups like Human Rights watch say the Taliban have opted for killing criminals associated with armed opposition groups — Islamic State and other Afghan militias that have increasingly posed serious security threats to the fledging Islamist regime —instead of keeping them in jails.

Under the Islamic Emirate’s strict interpretation of Sharia, acts such as drinking alcohol or extramarital relationships are considered criminal and carry severe penalties, while homosexuality and sodomy are punishable by death.

Since November, the Taliban have restarted public displays of punishment. Thieves have had their hands chopped off, adulterers have been flogged, and those found guilty of murder have been shot and killed in front of hundreds of male spectators.

More than 100 men and women have been publicly whipped, and at least two men have been executed so far, according to the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), which monitors human rights in the country.

“Such barbaric punishments — often carried out against persons for activities that should not even be considered crimes, such as listening to music — constitute torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, and are prohibited under international law,” Patricia Gossman, associate Asia director at Human Rights Watch, told VOA.

Redoing torture

Various forms of torture have been widely practiced at formal and informal detention centers and jails in Afghanistan, according to UNAMA and various rights groups.

Hundreds of Taliban fighters reportedly died in extremely brutal detention conditions in late 2001 and early 2002 during U.S.-led military campaigns that toppled the Taliban with the help of local Afghan militias, according to reports by the New York Times and Physicians for Human Rights.

Torture of detainees was also prevalent under the former Afghan government, which incarcerated more than 30,000 individuals, a large number of whom were alleged Taliban insurgents, according to U.N. reports dating back to at least 2011.

Last year, the Taliban produced a film documenting the bitter experiences of some prisoners held at the Parwan Detention Facility beside Bagram Air Base, which the U.S. military operated until 2012 when it was transferred to the Afghan government.

“The Taliban seem to be repeating all the mistakes and abuses of the past, including those they complained that the Republic [former Afghan government] had been responsible for, like torture,” Gossman said.

Mistari, the Taliban’s top official for prisons, refuted the torture allegations.

“Our leaders have given us a 39-articles guidance in which it’s said that we should treat inmates nicely,” he said, adding that the guidance also states if a guard or a jail official is seen taunting prisoners, he should be transferred elsewhere.

“We have nothing to do with their crimes. We are only there to protect the prisoners, feed them and keep them,” Mistari added.

Food, cold

Maintaining the prisons and feeding the large inmate population has long been a challenge in Afghanistan.

The previous Afghan government received financial and technical support from international donors to manage its prisons and detention facilities.

Facing strict international sanctions, the Taliban appears to be unable to run the jails, feed and care for the large inmate population.

Even outside the Taliban jails, an overwhelming majority of Afghans face hunger.

Throughout 2022, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) provided three meals daily for some 12,000 inmates in Afghanistan.

“The ICRC continues to work with Afghan authorities to ensure humane and dignified conditions of detention across Afghanistan,” Lucien Christen, an ICRC spokesperson, told VOA.

Moreover, the humanitarian organization has donated blankets, shawls, jackets and socks to keep 20,000 prisoners warm during the frigid winter temperatures.

Cold weather has killed more than 120 Afghans over the past two weeks, Taliban authorities have confirmed.

Both UNAMA and ICRC have access to prisons in Afghanistan for monitoring purposes.

“De facto authorities do appear to be seeking to fulfil their obligations in relation to the treatment of detainees,” UNAMA reported in July 2022. “Progress is hindered by financial constraints, resulting at times in inadequate food, medical care and hygiene supplies for detainees, and the cessation of vocational education and training programs for prisoners that were previously funded by the international community.”

Some senior Taliban leaders, including current ministers and governors, have a history of incarceration inside and outside Afghanistan, including at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp, a U.S. military prison set up in 2002 where only one Afghan inmate remains.