8am: In continuation of the Taliban’s recent anti-Persian initiatives, the group has removed the word “Danishgah = University” from the Signboard of Herat University in Herat province. On Wednesday, September 28, local sources talking to Hasht-e Subh said that the Taliban group has installed a new signboard with the Pashtu version of “Herat Pohantoon = Herat University” and has removed the Persian title. Meanwhile, local sources in Ghazni have reported a similar case with Sanaie Weekly which used to be published with mixed content of Persian and Pashtu, now the recent version of this publication is pure Pashto with no Persian content while the majority of the audience is Persian speakers. Click here to read more (external link).
Tolo News in Dari – September 28, 2022
Taliban and Russia Agree to ‘Special Discount’ on Purchase of Gas, Oil, and Wheat
Khaama: According to Abdul Salam Jawad Akhundzada, a spokesman for the Taliban Ministry of Commerce and Industry, products including gasoline, diesel, gas, and wheat will be purchased at a “special discount” in Russian currency. According to the agreement, Russia will supply a million tons of petrol, one million tons of diesel, 500,000 tons of liquefied gas, and two million tons of wheat to Afghanistan, said the Taliban official… Click here to read more (external link).
Extortion on Country Highways by Taliban Raises Tension for Drivers
Taliban militant (file photo)
8am: Complaints about overtaxing, overcharging, and extortion of Taliban militants under the name of transportation taxes are raised while there have already been reports about the takeover of citizens’ private businesses by the Taliban, disorder in the transportation sector, and the Taliban’s failure to meet the necessary conditions for registering cars and drivers on the roads. According to reports, after taking over private transportation agencies in Herat province, the Taliban told the owners of these transportation agencies; Before now, you were making money from this business, and now it’s our turn. Click here to read more (external link).
Top Afghan Taliban Official Urges Reopening Girls’ Schools
Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
September 27, 2022
ISLAMABAD — A senior Taliban official Tuesday called on his men-only government in Afghanistan to reopen all secondary schools to girls without further delay, saying there is no Islamic restriction on female education.
Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, the Taliban deputy foreign minister, made the rare appeal in a televised speech to a gathering of top Taliban officials and leaders in the capital, Kabul.
Since seizing power more than a year ago, the former Islamist insurgent group stopped girls beyond the sixth grade from returning to classrooms, portraying the move as based on religious principles.
“Education is obligatory on both men and women, without any discrimination. None of the religious scholars present here can deny this obligation. No one can offer a justification based on [Islamic] Sharia for opposing [women’s right to education],” Stanikzai said.
“It is the duty of the Islamic Emirate to set the stage for reopening doors of education to all Afghans as soon as possible because the delay is increasing gap between us [the government] and the nation on this particular issue,” he warned. The Taliban call their government the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.
The United Nations estimates the education ban has barred nearly one million girls from attending secondary in Afghanistan.
“If [the] Taliban continue failing to uphold the rights of all Afghans and to engage constructively with [the] international community, Afghanistan’s future is uncertain: fragmentation, isolation, poverty and internal conflict are likely scenarios,” Potzel Markus, the head of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan told a U.N. Security Council meeting Tuesday.
In the run-up to the session, 10 elected and five incoming UNSC members urged the Taliban to allow girls to return to secondary schools, noting that September 18 marked one year since the radical group banned girls’ education.
“We are calling on the Taliban to immediately reverse this decision,” Norway’s ambassador, Mona Juul, read in a joint statement to reporters in New York. “The Taliban have made Afghanistan the only country in the entire world where girls are banned from attending secondary school,” she added.
“The increased risks associated with disruption of education, particularly for girls, makes them more vulnerable to child labor and forced marriages. It impacts their future economic opportunities and results in long-term obstacles for durable peace, security and development,” Juul said.
The Taliban have also instructed women to cover their faces in public and told many female public sector employees to stay home since returning to power in August 2021, when the United States and NATO troops withdrew from the country.
Stanikzai, a rare moderate voice among senior Taliban figures, led the Taliban’s team in months of negotiations with the United States that resulted in the February 2020 agreement between the two rivals and set the stage for all foreign troops to leave the country after almost two decades.
Other Taliban officials have privately also advocated for reopening the schools to teenage girls, but critics say none of them can dare challenge the group’s supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, and a couple of his associates who are apparently behind the school closure and curbs on women.
Veil restrictions on women and banning them from long road travel without a male relative as well as other curbs on civil liberties are among key concerns deterring foreign governments from recognizing the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan.
The Taliban takeover in Afghanistan prompted Western countries to stop their financial assistance, worsening an already bad humanitarian crisis and pushing the national economy to the brink of collapse, with millions of Afghans facing acute hunger.
Margaret Besheer contributed to this report.
Tolo News in Dari – September 27, 2022
Afghanistan’s money is crumbling to pieces, just like its economy
LA Times: In previous years, the Afghan central bank — known as Da Afghanistan Bank, or DAB — would withdraw annually 3 billion to 4 billion afghanis’ worth (about $33 million to $45 million) of decrepit banknotes and substitute them with new ones printed abroad. (Afghanistan does not have its own mint.) But the international sanctions on working with the Taliban have left foreign printers spooked, plunging the country into a liquidity crisis as Afghans contend with a currency that is — literally — falling apart. Click here to read more (external link).
Afghanistan: Hazaras Doubly Terrorized – Analysis
SATP: The Hazaras suffer from a double persecution, first on the ground of ethnic difference with the majority Pashtun tribes, and second, because they follow the Shia sect of Islam in a Sunni majority country. The Hazara community is Afghanistan’s third largest ethnic group. Their distinct features make them easy prey for Sunni hardliners, both of the Taliban and the IS-KP, who consider them ‘apostates’ and ‘infidels’. After the collapse of the first Taliban regime in 2001, the Hazaras continued to suffer targeted violence. Since 2015, the emergence of Da’esh (Islamic State) unleashed an even deadlier wave of attacks, with suicide bombers targeting schools, mosques and even hospitals in Hazara neighbourhoods. Click here to read more (external link).
With Sikhs practically extinct in Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, India’s case as a natural homeland deserves a revisit
Monica Verma via Firstpost: If they can’t come back to India which was once the land of their ancestors, then where do they go? The fact that the Sikhs weren’t allowed to carry their scriptures by the current Taliban government to India and the fact that Sikhs will soon be an extinct minority in Afghanistan should revive the case for India as a natural homeland for them. Click here to read more (external link).
Taliban Claims Pakistan Receives Hefty Money for Permitting US Airstrikes on Afghanistan
Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai
Khaama: Taliban government authorities assert that US drones invaded Afghanistan through the airspace of Pakistan. They claim that Pakistan receives millions of dollars in return. In a meeting commemorating World Tourism Day, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, Political Deputy of the Taliban government’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, claimed that Pakistan had allowed the US to use its airspace so that American drones could enter Afghanistan. Click here to read more (external link).