8am: Local sources in Paktika Province report that Taliban traffic directorate employees in the city of Sharan, the capital of this province have struck due to not being paid for the last four months. Click here to read more (external link).
Taliban Dismisses Reports of Taliban Officials’ Lucrative Gains from World Cup
Khaama: The Telegraph’s report stated that senior IEA [Taliban] officials used lucrative salaries that came from the peace talks to purchase and then subcontract heavy equipment for tournament infrastructure over the past 10 years, citing a source from IEA’s Doha office. Two different senior Taliban sources detailed the lavish living expenses paid to officials during the peace talks, with the money used to buy large construction equipment, according to the report. Click here to read more (external link).
Iranian Official Informs about New Route of Drug Trafficking from Afghanistan
8am: Mohammad Masoud Zahidian, the deputy head of Iran’s anti-narcotics headquarters, says that drug smuggling has increased from the country’s soil. Previously, Indian, Russian and Iranian officials have repeatedly expressed concerns about the increase in drug cultivation, production and trafficking in Afghanistan under the rule of Taliban. Click here to read more (external link).
Taliban Closes Women’s Tailoring in Parwan Province
8am: In an interview on Saturday, sources said the Taliban had called women’s tailoring “haram”. On Wednesday last week, the Taliban entered women’s tailor shops in different parts of Charikar city, the capital of the province, and told female tailors to close their shops, according to sources. The Taliban have told them to find another job. Click here to read more (external link).
1TV Afghanistan Dari News – November 26, 2022
UNICEF Condemns Killing of at Least Four Children by Taliban in Daikundi
8am: The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) has described the Taliban’s attack on Siwak-Shiber village in the vicinity of Nili city, Daikundi province as shocking and sad. Taliban fighters, with the cooperation of their local supporters, attacked and killed two families in Siwak-Shiber area in the center of Daikundi province last Thursday. Click here to read more (external link).
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UN Experts: Taliban Curbs on Women Amount to Crime Against Humanity
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
November 25, 2022
ISLAMABAD — A group of independent experts at the United Nations has warned that Taliban restrictions on women’s rights and freedoms in Afghanistan could amount to a “crime against humanity.”
The experts demanded in a joint statement Friday that the Taliban treatment of women and girls “should be investigated as gender persecution” under international law.
Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid on Twitter promptly rejected the allegations as “disrespect to the sacred religion of Islam and against international rules.”
Since returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban have ordered women to cover their faces in public and not undertake long road trips without a close male relative. They have instructed many female government staff members to stay at home.
Teenage girls have been banned from attending school beyond the sixth grade across most of Afghanistan. This month the Taliban banned women from entering parks, amusement parks, gyms and public baths across the country.
“In recent months, violations of women and girls’ fundamental rights and freedoms in Afghanistan, already the most severe and unacceptable in the world, have sharply increased,” the U.N. experts said. “Confining women to their homes is tantamount to imprisonment and is likely leading to increased levels of domestic violence and mental health challenges.”
The experts do not speak for the world body, but they are mandated to report their findings to the United Nations.
‘Erasure’ of women, girls
“Men accompanying women wearing colorful clothing, or without a face covering, have been brutally beaten by Taliban officers,” the experts’ statement noted. “We are deeply concerned that such actions are intended to compel men and boys to punish women and girls who resist the Taliban’s erasure of them, further depriving them of their rights, and normalizing violence against them.”
The U.N. statement came after the Taliban said Wednesday that authorities in eastern Afghanistan had flogged 14 people, including three women, in front of hundreds of onlookers in a football stadium for purported “moral crimes.”
This was the second time in less than two weeks the Islamist rulers administered the punishment to people accused of adultery, false allegations of adultery and theft. On November 11, Taliban authorities in the northeastern Takhar province lashed 10 men and nine women in the presence of elders, scholars and residents.
The public flogging is the latest sign of the Taliban’s application of their strict interpretation of Islamic law, known as Shariah, to criminal justice, and restoring harsh polices of their rule from 1996 to 2001 in much of Afghanistan.
The Taliban reject criticism of their governance, saying their policies are in line with Afghan tradition and Shariah.
Taliban Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Qahar Balkhi in written comments to VOA also pushed back against Friday’s assertions by U.N.-appointed experts, and in turn he urged the United Nations to investigate alleged “war crimes” against Afghans by U.S.-led foreign troops during their 20 years of “occupation” of the country.
“[The] current collective punishment of innocent Afghans by the U.N. sanctions regime all in the name of women rights and equality amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity that must be given priority and those involved in the previous and current crimes all prosecuted under international law,” Balkhi said.
Punishing sanctions
The Taliban took over Afghanistan after almost 20 years of insurgency against U.S.-led NATO troops and their Afghan partners. The international troops withdrew from the country days after the Islamist group captured the capital, Kabul.
Many senior leaders in the Taliban administration are under U.N. travel and financial sanctions stemming from the time the group was waging its insurgency.
The sanctions, the international isolation of the Afghan banking sector and suspension of financial assistance have pushed the economy of the largely foreign-aid-dependent country to the brink of collapse since the Taliban takeover.
No country has formally recognized the Taliban government over human rights and terrorism-related concerns. The lack of legitimacy and suspension of foreign financial aid has exacerbated an already bad Afghan humanitarian crisis, with millions of people facing acute food shortages.
Related
10-day measles vaccination campaign rolled out across Afghanistan
Ariana: Public Health Ministry officials said the campaign will run for 10 days and that vaccination teams have been set up at mosques, schools and health centers. “Mobile measles vaccination teams have come to mosques, schools and health centers. Please vaccinate your children between the ages of nine months and five years for free,” said Qalandar Ebad, Public Health minister. Click here to read more (external link).
Taliban to Replace Indigenous Population With Pakistani Nomads Along Northern Afghanistan’s Qosh Tepa Canal: NRF
Sibghatullah Ahmadi
8am: NRF spokesperson, Sibghatullah Ahmadi, made the claim in a tweet on Thursday (November 24th). “The Taliban have started distributing lands along the Qosh Tepa irrigation canal to the families of terrorists from Waziristan and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan and other non-native peoples,” Ahmadi detailed. Click here to read more (external link).
The Chinese entrepreneurs chasing an Afghan ‘gold rush’
Despite the ongoing unrest, an economic crisis and United Nations’ concerns over human rights, more Chinese citizens are joining the country’s “gold rush”. Once a small minority, Chinese nationals now make up Afghanistan’s biggest group of expatriates.