Ariana: Chromite reserves, estimated at around 13,000 tons, have been found in Daman district of southern Kandahar province. Local officials said that exploration work is ongoing at the site of the mine. Click here to read more (external link).
Al-Azhar Imam: Ban on Women’s Education Contradicts Sharia
Tolo News: The Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed el-Tayeb on Thursday said that he “deeply” regrets the decision issued by the authorities in Afghanistan, preventing Afghan women’s access to university education and adding that it contradicts Islamic Sharia and conflicts with its explicit call for men and women to pursue knowledge from the cradle to the grave. Tayeb said he warns “Muslims and non-Muslims against believing or accepting the allegation that it banning women’s education is approved in Islam.” Click here to read more (external link).
Canada Reviews Counterterror Laws to Aid Taliban-Run Afghanistan
Akmal Dawi
VOA News
December 22, 2022
The Canadian government might have a lot of disagreements with the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan but it is reviewing Canada’s counterterrorism laws to find ways to help people under Taliban rule.
Canada has designated the Taliban a terrorist entity, prohibiting Canadian citizens and organizations from all transactions with Taliban individuals, processes and institutions.
More than a dozen Canadian non-governmental organizations have called on Ottawa to carve out humanitarian exceptions for them, so they can continue to operate in Afghanistan.
“Canadian humanitarian and development agencies have operated in Afghanistan for decades and must be allowed to continue carrying out essential operations,” the NGOs said in an open letter.
Canada pledged $143 million to the U.N. system to fund humanitarian operations for Afghans inside and outside Afghanistan. A major donor to Afghanistan, Canada spent more than $3.8 billion on development and humanitarian activities in Afghanistan between 2002 and 2021, but immediately stopped all development assistance after the Taliban seized power in August 2021.
“Departments from across the government of Canada are seized with this issue and are working to identify a solution that upholds Canada’s national security interests, while facilitating the effective delivery of assistance to the Afghan people in this unprecedented situation,” Genevieve Tremblay, a spokesperson for Canada’s International Development Agency, told VOA.
Ottawa is not interested in taking the Taliban off its terrorism list. The action is rather prompted by calls from aid agencies for an urgent response to the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.
“Canada remains deeply concerned about the continuing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and we will continue to do all that we can to support the Afghan people,” said Tremblay.
On Tuesday, U.N. emergency relief coordinator Martin Griffiths told the Security Council that 97% of the people in Afghanistan live in poverty and two-thirds need urgent humanitarian assistance for survival.
“We face a daunting financial challenge as we enter 2023. We need $4.6 billion to adequately address the country’s humanitarian needs,” Griffiths said.
Feminist policy
In addition to its terrorism-related legal restrictions, Canada’s feminist international development policy also appears at odds with a Taliban-run Afghanistan, where women have been deprived of education, work and many other freedoms.
This week the Taliban closed all private and public universities to women, a move globally condemned as misogynistic.
Aid workers say the Taliban also interfere with and restrict humanitarian operations in Afghanistan, particularly for women.
“Female humanitarian workers face harassment, intimidation and mistreatment on a daily basis,” the U.N. reported in September.
Canada has prioritized women in its Feminist International Assistance Policy and requires its funded partners to integrate gender-based programming into all their programs.
“These decisions were made very strategically,” Paras told VOA “to empower women around the world but also to trademark Canada’s identity as a donor.”
US example
This week, the U.S. government announced it is relaxing some sanctions on the Taliban to help aid agencies deliver essential humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan.
“Today we are making an important update to U.S. sanctions. Our updated general licenses across U.S. sanctions programs will make it easier to deliver life-saving aid to those in need while ensuring sanctions target those threatening peace, security, and stability,” Antony Blinken, U.S. secretary of state, tweeted on Tuesday.
The U.S. has committed over $1 billion in humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan over the last year, making Washington the top donor to the famine-hit country.
While commending U.S. funding, aid agencies say Washington’s strict economic sanctions have inhibited humanitarian response operations and have exacerbated economic hardships for many Afghans.
The U.S. humanitarian waivers will encourage Canada to ease its own sanctions and allow Canadian aid to reach needy Afghans, Paras said.
“We in Canada tag along with our bigger cousin across the border,” she said.
Taliban Violently Disperses Women’s Protest Against University Ban
RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
December 22, 2022
Taliban security forces have used violence and arrested several people as they dispersed a protest by Afghan women against a ruling that bans female students from universities.
Afghanistan’s Taliban announced the decision to forbid women from universities late on December 20 in a letter from the Islamist group’s education ministry to higher education institutions, drawing immediate condemnation from the international community and the United Nations.
A group of some 50 women dressed in hijabs, some wearing masks, gathered in the capital, Kabul, on December 22 for a peaceful protest march against the move, chanting slogans against the ban, but were attacked and dispersed by Taliban security forces, participants and witnesses told RFE/RL.
The participants intended to gather outside Kabul University, Afghanistan’s largest and most prestigious higher education institution, but switched to a different location after a large number of security forces members were deployed there.
One of the women who attended the march, Basira, told RFE/RL that security forces beat some of the participants and took them away, while others managed to escape. A number of journalists covering the protest have been reportedly detained, too.
Another participant, Shahla Arefi, told RFE/RL that plainclothes female members of the security forces had infiltrated the march and immobilized some protesters who attempted to run when armed Taliban men appeared.
Taliban authorities have not commented on the incident.
On December 22, Turkey and Saudi Arabia became the latest Muslim-majority countries to blast the Taliban authorities’ move.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, speaking at a news conference with his Yemeni counterpart, said that the ban was “neither Islamic nor humane” and called on the Taliban to reverse the move.
The Foreign Ministry of Saudi Arabia, a country that until recently had also enforced sweeping restrictions on women’s rights but has now begun to allow them more liberty, voiced “astonishment and regret” at the Taliban’s decision.
The ministry said the move was “astonishing in all Islamic countries.”
On December 21, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan urged the Taliban authorities to immediately revoke the decision.
Qatar, which has maintained contact with the Taliban authorities, also condemned the decision.
Inside Afghanistan, where cricket is a hugely popular sport, several cricketers have also condemned the move, while some male students at the medical school of Nangarhar University, in eastern Afghanistan, refused to sit exams on December 21 in solidarity with their banned female colleagues.
In neighboring Pakistan, students at Peshawar University in the northwest of the country staged a peaceful demonstration in support of the Afghan girls’ right to higher education, urging the Taliban to reverse the ban.
With reporting by AP and AFP
Copyright (c) 2022. 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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Tolo News in Dari – December 22, 2022
Afghan YouTuber Ajmal Haqiqi & his Colleagues Gets Released
Ajmal Haqiqi
Khaama: Afghan YouTuber Ajmal Haqiqi and his three colleagues arbitrarily arrested on charges of “insulting Islamic sacred values” were released on Wednesday. In a video circulating on social media, Haqiqi confirmed his release and that of his three colleagues namely, Omid Aman, Ghulam Sakhi, and Obidullah Majeedi. He says they spent nearly six months in prison. Haqiqi and his colleagues’ release comes right after the release of two American nationals on Tuesday. Click here to read more (external link).
Doctor Dies in Taliban Custody After Being Severely Tortured
8am: The head of the Salang district clinic, in Parwan province, died after being kept in Taliban custody for 15 months. The doctor’s name was Lal Mohammad Salangi and he was arrested from the private hospital of Parwan in November last year, sources confirmed to Hasht-e Subh on Thursday (December 22nd). As yet, the motive behind his detention and murder is not determined. Click here to read more (external link).
Afghanistan’s Drug Trade Flourishes Under the Ruling Taliban Regime
Taliban militants dancing (file photo)
Khaama: After taking power last August, the Taliban promised to crack down on narcotics and explicitly ban the production, processing and sale of illicit drugs. On the contrary, the drug trade in Afghanistan did not only remain untouched but boomed to a great extent. The number of drug addicts including men, women and young children living in the worst possible conditions under the bridges is overwhelming. “My husband was an addict, he convinced me to take drugs. He died some time ago, and I joined a group of addicts for I had no place to live and none of my relatives would accept me,” a female drug addict said, Sky News reported in a video recorded from the scene. Click here to read more (external link).
‘A Bird With No Wings’: Afghan Women React With Despair To Taliban’s University Ban
Taliban higher education minister, Nida Mohammad Nadim
By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
December 21, 2022
The Taliban’s ban on women attending university hit like a bombshell to current and future students, despite the consistent erosion of the rights of women and girls since the hard-line Islamist group seized power last year.
The dire news, delivered by the Taliban’s Higher Education Ministry in a statement on December 20, was condemned internationally and decried by female students.
As the Afghan capital, Kabul, awoke to the gloomy new reality, small demonstrations against the decision were quickly dispersed by Taliban fighters. Protests by women were also held in other cities, while photos of male students walking out of exams in solidarity with women students were published on social media.
Women from around the country who spoke to RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi following the announcement described a feeling of despair and helplessness.
“The Taliban has come and taken away our human rights, both the right to education and the right to freedom,” said Najiba, a second-year law student at Bamiyan University in central Afghanistan.
“Imagine how frustrating it would be for a bird with no wings who wants to fly,” she added, using only her first name. “And the right to education is considered a wing not only for me, but for all girls in Afghanistan.”
Tamana Azizi, a medical student in the northern Kunduz Province, said by telephone that her dreams of serving her people as a doctor had been crushed.
“I am very sad because the doors of universities are shut in the faces of girls,” she said. “Closing the doors of the universities means closing our future and losing our dreams and aspirations.”
Farhat Rahmani, a journalism student in the northern Parwan Province, told Radio Azadi by telephone that she felt “destroyed.”
“I think that we will never be able to continue our studies,” she said. “They [the Taliban] did not fulfill any of the promises they made. I have no words to express my sadness.”
Shortly after seizing power in August 2021, the Taliban pledged to uphold women’s rights. The militant group made a public effort to assuage concerns by the international community that it would return to the infamous repression of women and girls during its first stint in power in 1996-2001 — when women were not allowed to work and girls were barred from pursuing an education. But the Taliban has fallen far short of meeting its promises.
During the Taliban’s first year in power, girls were barred from attending school past the sixth grade and women were ordered to wear the all-encompassing burqa. In recent months, women have been banned from entering parks, bathhouses, and gyms, among other public places.
While women and girls were allowed to take university entrance exams a few months ago, the professions they could apply to study were strictly limited, with engineering, journalism, veterinary science, and agriculture not an option.
Universities had until this point remained open to women, although with rules that required female students to use segregated entrances and classrooms, and allowing only women or older men to teach them.
In its December 20 letter, the Taliban’s Higher Education Ministry said the government had evaluated its policy on universities and announced that “female education is suspended until further notice.”
The letter signed by the higher education minister, Nida Mohammad Nadim, said the decision was effective immediately, and ordered educational institutions to inform the ministry of their compliance.
The decision was quickly condemned by countries and rights groups around the world.
During a UN Security Council meeting to discuss Afghanistan on December 20, the United States and Britain harshly criticized the move by the Taliban, whose government has not been recognized by any country.
“The Taliban cannot expect to be a legitimate member of the international community until they respect the rights of all Afghans, especially the human rights and fundamental freedom of women and girls,” U.S. Deputy UN Ambassador Robert Wood said.
British UN Ambassador Barbara Woodward called the ban “another egregious curtailment of women’s rights and a deep and profound disappointment for every single female student.”
Through a spokesman, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres said in a December 21 statement that he was “deeply alarmed by news reports that the Taliban have suspended access to universities to women and girls.”
Guterres reiterated that “the denial of education not only violates the equal rights of women and girls, but will have a devastating impact on the country’s future.”
Copyright (c) 2022. 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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Commander of Former Anti-Taliban Uprising Forces Killed by Taliban in Northern Takhar
8am: Taliban forces killed this commander of former militias supported by the former republic regime around 12 a.m. on Tuesday night (December 20th) in Chobar vicinity, Taloqan city’s 1st PD, Takhar province. Sources identified the commander as Gol Aziz, a resident of Qaruqusaai village, Kalafgan district, Takhar province. Two Taliban fighters were also injured in during a gun battle. It is reported that the Gol Aziz’s son was also injured. Click here to read more (external link).