AP: For some Afghans who were evacuated as their country fell to the Taliban last summer, the journey to the United States has stalled, and perhaps ended, at a sun-baked cluster of tents and temporary housing on an American base in the Balkans. Click here to read more (external link).
Related
8am: A local source in Ghazni province said on Saturday that the Taliban had increased its surveillance over barber shops and hairdressers across the city recently. The source says that on Friday, the Taliban severely beat a gents’ hairdresser in the Khaja Ali area of Ghazni city while shaving the beard of a customer and broke one of his arms. Click here to read more (external link).
Ariana: Afghanistan’s Medicine Importers Union on Saturday urged the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) to prevent pharmaceutical drugs from being smuggled into the country and assured the people that there would be enough medicine to cover the domestic market. Click here to read more (external link).
8am: In a statement, the National Resistance Front (NRF) has written that the Taliban group has deployed more than 30,000 Taliban special fighters in Panjshir, Baghlan, and Takhar provinces for the purpose of fighting against the NRF forces and to crackdown on any resistance groups in these areas. “Taliban fighters have been carrying out such a brutal crackdown on the civilians in these provinces that reminds the the “brutal fighting of former Soviet Forces” in Afghanistan,” the statement said. The statement further stated that the Taliban group has arrested, tortured, and killed innocent civilians on alleged charges of affiliation with NRF in these areas, forcing dozens of families to flee their homes. Click here to read more (external link).
Related
Al Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahri
The Guardian (UK): Intelligence report raises fears country could again become base for international terrorists – The UN report suggests most senior al-Qaida leaders are currently based in the eastern region of Afghanistan, from Zabul province north towards Kunar and along the border with Pakistan. The border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan is lined with inhospitable hills that have served as strongholds for a number of militant groups. Click here to read more (external link).
RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal
Abubakar Siddique
June 3, 2022
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Zaryali is among the hundreds of Afghan musicians who have fled to neighboring Pakistan since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan.
Soon after seizing power in August, the Taliban outlawed music and footage emerged of its fighters publicly beating and humiliating musicians and burning their instruments.
The incidents have confirmed the worst fears of Afghan artists, who have said the Taliban is treating musicians with the same disdain it had shown during its first stint in power in the 1990s when it banned music as “un-Islamic.”
But even in Pakistan, Afghan musicians say they are not safe. Authorities have cracked down on undocumented Afghan migrants and refugees and deported them back to Afghanistan. Pakistan, which already hosts over 1 million Afghans, has been keen to avoid another major influx of refugees.
Police in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa recently arrested four Afghan musicians for living illegally in the country. The arrests in the provincial capital, Peshawar, triggered protests by Pakistani musicians and activists who urged authorities not to deport them over fears for their safety.
“The Afghan artists who have arrived here live in fear and great misery,” Zaryali told RFE/RL’s Radio Mashaal.
The singer says many Afghan musicians in Peshawar, located near the Afghan border, are afraid to go outside and remain largely confined to their temporary accommodations.
“Some of them have expired passports while others have expired visas,” said Zaryali. “They cannot perform or find any work. They live in fear of being deported back to a country where they cannot live safely because their lives are in danger.”
Linked ‘Though Language, Religion’
Even as authorities have cracked down on undocumented Afghans, some Pakistani musicians and activists have stage rallies in support of Afghan musicians.
One of them is Rashid Khan, a Pakistani singer who heads Hunari Tolona, a local NGO. “Music is the only passion and livelihood for these people, and they cannot live without it,” Khan told RFE/RL.
On June 2, dozens of Afghan and Pakistani artists and activists held a protest in front of the provincial assembly building in Peshawar. The protesters called for authorities to stop arresting and deporting at-risk Afghan musicians.
Days earlier, on May 30, protesters had held another rally, which came two days after police arrested four Afghan musicians. A court in Peshawar is expected to make a ruling over their deportations in the coming days.
Khan says his organization has offered monetary help to the Afghan musicians and helped them to apply for residency permits. He has also held meetings with local officials to raise awareness about the issue.
“We were told that Afghans are our brothers and linked to us through religion and language, so they will be looked after in every possible way,” he said.
“But instead, our Afghan colleagues were arrested for violating the Foreigners Act,” he added, referring to a Pakistani law that empowers authorities to deport foreigners lacking proper documentation.
Hayat Roghani, the head of Mafkoora, a local NGO in Peshawar, told Radio Mashaal that at least 216 Afghan musicians have arrived in Pakistan since the Taliban takeover.
Afghan musicians who fled to Pakistan say attaining a visa is a protracted and expensive process. They say a Pakistani visa can cost up to $600, a huge sum for many Afghans.
Many of the Afghan musicians are Pashtuns, who make up most of the population in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
“We told the court that they have fled persecution and might face threats to their lives if they are forced to return there,” Khan added. “Imagine if Europeans would force Ukrainian refugees to return to their country.”
Tumultuous History
More than 3 million Afghans fled to Pakistan following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. There was another wave in the 1990s when Afghanistan descended into civil war and the Taliban seized power.
After the U.S.-led invasion in 2001, some Afghan refugees in Pakistan returned home, although an estimated 1.3 million documented refugees and hundreds of thousands of undocumented refugees remained.
Over the years, many Afghan refugees have accused authorities of harassment and beatings, arbitrary detentions, and evictions from their homes. Even documented Afghan refugees say they have been coerced into leaving the country.
Pakistan, which is not a signatory to international conventions on the rights of refugees, braced for a major influx of Afghans after the Taliban regained power last year. But authorities managed to avert another refugee wave by imposing tighter border controls and requiring Afghans to apply for visas.
More than an estimated 100,000 Afghans, mostly educated professionals, have arrived in Pakistan since the Taliban captured control of Kabul on August 15.
The UN’s International Organization for Migration (IOM) has recorded the return of some 34,000 Afghan refugees from Pakistan to Afghanistan so far this year.
“We have arrived in this country to look for asylum out of desperation,” Hafta Gul, an Afghan singer in Peshawar, told BBC Pashto. “We have nowhere else to go.”
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
June 3, 2022
ISLAMABAD — A new United Nations-supported survey has concluded that 1.3 million Afghan refugees are residing in neighboring Pakistan, about 100,000 fewer than the figure officially used until now.
An official statement said Friday the government had completed the survey, officially known as the Documentation Renewal and Information Verification Exercise (DRIVE), with the help of the U.N. refugee agency.
Officials explaining the revised figures said that some Afghan families either did not seek to renew refugee status for unknown reasons, or might have simply returned to Afghanistan.
“The data of Afghans was not updated in the last 10 years, therefore it was imperative to verify and update records which will enable us to better understand existing needs in the refugee communities,” said Saleem Khan, the chief commissioner for Afghan refugees in Pakistan.
As part of the verification exercise, documenters gave so-called smart identity cards to close to one million Afghans. Officials said the cards, which are valid until June 30th of next year, are meant to protect and safeguard the displaced population’s interests as legitimate refugees in Pakistan, enabling them to access humanitarian aid and other benefits.
“They provide proof of identity, entitlement to temporary stay in Pakistan, and freedom of movement. They facilitate access to certain essential services, including education, healthcare, banking, property rental and allied facilities,” explained Noriko Yoshida, UNHCR’s representative to Pakistan.
The survey found that more than half of the 1.3 million registered Afghan refugees reside in the northwestern border province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
The DRIVE exercise found that more than half (52%) of the registered refugee population are children, including 197,428 (15%) being four years of age or under. Only 4% of those registered are 60 years of age or older. Women, children and older people represent 76% of the population, according to the statement.
The exercise also allowed for the registration of some 267,000 newborn children of registered Afghan refugees, describing it as an important step for the protection of the youngest members of the refugee community.
The survey, officials said, would facilitate support for those refugees who decide to return home when conditions in Afghanistan allow. The smart cards, meanwhile, allow Afghans to open accounts in Pakistani banks and receive remittances from relatives working in Persian Gulf and Western countries to meet their economic needs.
The Afghan refugees in Pakistan are among several million people who fled decades of conflict and persecution in Afghanistan, starting with the Soviet Union’s invasion of the country in 1979.
Many returned to Afghanistan soon after the United States-led Western military alliance invaded Afghanistan in October 2001 and dislodged the country’s repressive Taliban rulers.
The fundamentalist Islamist group regained power last August just before the final U.S.-led foreign troops chaotically withdrew from the county, prompting hundreds of thousands of Afghans to flee for fear of Taliban reprisals.
Pakistani officials and the UNHCR report more than 300,000 Afghans have entered Pakistan since the Taliban takeover. Around 100,000 of them arrived on valid visas while the rest crossed over the border illegally.
Islamabad refuses to treat these Afghans as refugees and wants them to leave Pakistan, saying the country already hosts one of world’s largest and oldest refugee populations and its troubled economy cannot sustain the pressure of new refugees.
The U.N. has repeatedly warned that humanitarian conditions have worsened in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover and financial sanctions on Kabul have pushed the country’s war-hit national economy to the brink of collapse.
8am: Taliban fighters have attacked the office of Ayatollah Mohaqeq Kabuli, a prominent Shiite cleric. A local source in Ghazni province said on Friday (3 June) that the Taliban had stormed the office of the Shiite Authority in the provincial capital yesterday (Thursday, 2 June). According to the source, the Taliban tore up the photos, banners and equipment in the office. Click here to read more (external link).
Ariana: According to Kandahar Chamber of Commerce officials, fruit trees, including apricots, plums, peaches and others, have been badly damaged, reducing their summer yield. Officials said farmers sell their produce to local markets around the country and export abroad. However, this year, their harvests have been reduced significantly which has become a cause for concern. Click here to read more (external link).