Afghanistan’s Former Prosecutors Hunted By Criminals They Helped Convict

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By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
Abubakar Siddique
Ron Synovitz
September 21, 2021

KABUL — Afghanistan’s former prosecutors once worked to rid their country of its most dangerous criminals by building court cases to put them behind bars.

Now, former prosecutors are hiding themselves from those same criminals — the murderers and drug dealers who were freed by the Taliban when the militant group took over the country and released almost all convicted criminals from Afghanistan’s prisons.

For years before last month’s collapse of the Afghan central government, Humayun was tasked with investigating serious crimes in the southern province of Helmand. Working in a region where most of the world’s opium is grown and processed into heroin, his job often focused on those in Afghanistan’s illegal narcotics trade.

But now, Humayun says he is receiving threats from the criminals he helped to convict. He says they are demanding that he reimburse them for fines they’d paid and property that was confiscated from them as part of their sentencing.

Humayun, who like many Afghans goes by one name, cites the example of a former convict who called him recently from Helmand’s Nad-e Ali district.

“He told me I’m responsible for the confiscation of his car and that I should return it now,” Humayun told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi.

Humayun says he is not alone in facing such demands.

“Many former inmates are now threatening me and my colleagues to demand that we return their money,” he said. “A responsible court [working under a legitimate government and constitution] imposed penalties or ordered their properties confiscated. Yet they are insisting that we are personally responsible for what happened to them.”

Jails Emptied Out

Former prosecutors from across Afghanistan tell similar stories about the threats they are receiving.

Many of those freed by the Taliban last month from Afghanistan’s prisons were Taliban fighters or members of other militant groups like the Islamic state or Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan.

But the jails emptied out by the Taliban also included prisoners convicted for crimes that would have received severe punishments, even the death penalty, under the Taliban’s own interpretation of Islamic law.

Afghan lawyers tell RFE/RL that those former inmates already have targeted at least three former prosecutors in revenge killings.

Hayatullah Khan, a pseudonym for a former government attorney who requested anonymity because of security fears, says he knew those targeted.

“They included Ahmadi Shah, who was assassinated in Nangarhar Province on August 26,” he said. “The next day, another prosecutor was killed in [the western province of] Farah. On September 12, another former prosecutor Nusrat Ullah was killed. Every [former] prosecutor here now faces grave dangers.”

Although the Taliban has declared that its forces will not torment those who worked for the ousted Afghan government, reports of retribution and reprisal killings are common across Afghanistan.

The Taliban has said nothing about former government workers who are being targeted in revenge killings. The militant group also has said little about the structure of the future court system under their rule, or whether they will allow former Afghan justice officials to return to work.

‘No Need For Prosecution’

Haroun Rahimi, a self-exiled assistant law professor from the Kabul-based American University of Afghanistan, says he does not expect the Taliban to continue to employ any former prosecutors.

“The prosecution is basically an element of due process,” Rahimi told RFE/RL. “You need a government person to actually make a case that a person who is being accused of a crime is guilty.”

“But when I talked to prosecutors in Herat who have met with the Taliban’s top judge in the province, they said the Taliban feel they have no need for prosecution,” he said.

“They said the Taliban has not appointed anybody as a caretaker for the prosecution in Herat,” Rahimi noted. “They said the Taliban basically implied that they have no need for prosecutors — that the forces who will actually be arresting people and punishing people would just do the job of the prosecution themselves.”

“The element of the rule of law in legal terms — not the police investigators, but the due process of law — felt very strange to the Taliban,” Rahimi said.

“This suggests that the Taliban is going to continue to run the judiciary the way it has done so far as an insurgency with its shadow courts,” Rahimi said. “Often there is just one judge for a whole province, and that judge is the sole decision maker.”

Videos of the Taliban publicly punishing alleged criminals suggest the hard-line movement may formalize its shadow courts that had dispensed quick rulings under Taliban commanders or clerics.

“There’s no indication that the Taliban are thinking about incorporating the institutional setup of the previous government’s judicial and legal system,” Rahimi said. “They view that system with distain. They’d like to continue what they perceive as a more Islamic — authentically Islamic — simple version of the adjudication that they were doing with their shadow courts.”

Female prosecutors see no prospect for returning to their work. Some say they receive threats every day and worry about their safety.

Jamila, a pseudonym for a woman who’d worked as a prosecutor in Kabul, says she and her colleagues are desperate to leave the country.

She says their work for the ousted government means they are in danger along with their families.

“We want the media to convey our message to the world,” she told Radio Azadi. “The international community should help relocate us to a safe place, so we don’t suffer a complete nervous breakdown.”

Britain has already evacuated some prosecutors and judges of a Kabul-based special crimes tribunal to Manchester and other cities. That court dealt with serious criminal cases in Afghanistan.

With reporting by Radio Azadi correspondents on the ground in Afghanistan whose names are being withheld for their protection.

Copyright (c) 2021. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

Taliban Expands Afghan Cabinet List But Again Fails To Include Women

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Zabihullah Mujahid

By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
September 21, 2021

The Taliban-led government has expanded its interim cabinet, releasing a list of deputy ministers solely comprising men despite increasing international criticism that the hard-line Islamist group’s actions were failing to live up to its early pledges of inclusion for women.

Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid presented the list of deputy ministers and agency heads on September 21, as three international human rights groups issued a report documenting a “litany of abuses” since the Taliban seized power in mid-August.

“In just over five weeks since assuming control of Afghanistan, the Taliban have clearly demonstrated that they are not serious about protecting or respecting human rights. We have already seen a wave of violations, from reprisal attacks and restrictions on women, to crackdowns on protests, the media and civil society,” Dinushika Dissanayake, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for South Asia, said in a statement.

Speaking at a news conference in Kabul, Mujahid said that two veteran battlefield commanders were appointed as deputy defense and interior ministers, adding to the roster of hard-liners in the main group of ministers.

The newly nominated Mullah Abdul Qayyum Zakir and Sadr Ibrahim were identified in UN reports as being among battlefield commanders who were pressing the Taliban leadership to step up the war against the Western-backed government in Kabul.

Mujahid defended the latest nominations, saying they increase ethnic representation in the cabinet. Tajik businessman Haji Nooruddin Azizi was appointed acting trade minister, while his deputy Haji Mohammad Azim Sultanzada is an ethnic Uzbek businessman. Mohammad Hassan Ghiasi, deputy minister for public health, is a member of the mainly Shi’ite Hazara ethnic minority.

The spokesman said that women might be added at some time in the future, but that did little to allay growing fears that the government installed by the Taliban after it gained control of most of the war-torn country and ousted the Western-backed government on August 15 will return to the repressive rule it employed during when in power from 1996 to 2001.

The Taliban has sought to counter that image with promises of moderate policies and respect for rights, but the formation of an all-male government led by hard-line veterans composed of men who are mostly from the Pashtun ethnic group failed to back up the pledge.

The international community has warned it would judge the group by its actions, and that recognition of a Taliban-led government would be linked to issues including the treatment of women and minorities.

According to Mujahid, there is no reason for withholding recognition.

“It is the responsibility of the United Nations to recognize our government [and] for other countries, including European, Asian, and Islamic countries, to have diplomatic relations with us,” he said.

The cabinet list comes after the government excluded girls from returning to secondary school last week.

Mujahid suggested this was a temporary decision, saying: “We are finalizing things.”

“Soon it will be announced when they can go to school,” the spokesman said.

Last month, the Taliban-led government announced that female university students could continue their studies but only in gender-segregated classes and if they wore a niqab — an Islamic veil that covers the face — and abaya — a loose-fitting and all-covering robe.

In the Taliban’s previous rule of Afghanistan in the late 1990s, girls were not allowed to attend school and women were banned from work and education.

In their report published on September 21, Amnesty International, the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH), and the World Organization Against Torture (OMCT) document how women’s rights are being repressed under the Taliban, including targeted killings of civilians, the repression of the rights of women and girls, and the intimidation of human rights defenders.

“Women who were in government prior to the Taliban’s takeover have by and large fled the country; however, there have already been several instances of reprisals against their employees, colleagues, and family members who have stayed in Afghanistan,” the report says.

It added that female judges and prosecutors have also come “under threat” from the Taliban, as well as from men who had been imprisoned on charges of murder or domestic violence and subsequently freed by the militants.

As a result of the climate of fear, many women are now dressed in burqas covering their whole bodies and leave their homes only a male guardian. Most have stopped other activities to avoid violence and reprisals.

“Why are boys allowed to study, when there is no such right for girls?” Rawanda Abraar, an Afghan student from Kabul, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi during a program on female leadership on September 20.

“I have studied hard for the past 11 years. I dreamed of studying journalism at university and being a voice for my people. All my dreams were destroyed. We can’t even leave our homes freely. I want to finish my education. We don’t deserve to be buried alive in our own homes,” she added.

The Taliban has also engaged in “large-scale door-to-door searches, forcing human rights defenders into hiding,” while others were beaten up by militants, the human rights groups said.

Other abuses included a “crackdown” on freedom of expression, with many protests being violently repressed by the Taliban, and “reprisals” on former government workers.

The report calls on the UN Human Rights Council to “take decisive action to establish a robust independent investigative mechanism to monitor and report on human rights abuses committed in violation of international human rights law, and to contribute to accountability for crimes under international law.”

“Human rights defenders, journalists, and others who are targeted for their work must be evacuated and given safe passage if they wish to leave Afghanistan; and women and girls, and ethnic and religious minorities who are targeted because of their gender, ethnic, and religious identity, must be guaranteed protection,” it says.

Afghanistan’s unsettled future under its new rulers is among the issues that are expected to feature prominently at the United Nations General Assembly starting on September 21 in New York.

With reporting by AP, AFP, and Reuters

Copyright (c) 2021. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

Ethnic Cleansing: Kuchis Are Taking Advantage of Hazara Farmlands in Ghazni’s Nawur District

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A Kuchi camp in southern Afghanistan. (file photo)

8am: “The Taliban recently evicted four Hazara families from their homes in the village of Qorban-Mordah,” he says. “These four families have taken refuge to our village – the Kuchis have now occupied their homes. They have also broken down the gates of mosques and houses.” Click here to read more (external link).

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NRF distributes publication

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Taliban: 40 suspects arrested in connection with Nangarhar explosions

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Ariana: Taliban’s head of intelligence directorate in Nangarhar said on Monday that 40 people have been arrested in connection with explosions that rocked Jalalabad city on Saturday and Sunday. The intelligence chief, Dr Bashir, also confirmed that four people had died and six others were wounded in the explosions – three on Saturday and one on Sunday. Click here to read more (external link).

UN’s Guterres Says Intra-Taliban ‘Fight For Power’ Hindering International Efforts On Afghanistan

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UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
September 20, 2021

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says an ongoing “fight for power” among rival Taliban groups has complicated the situation in Afghanistan since the departure of U.S.-led international forces late last month and publicly pressed the hard-line militants now ruling the country to respect rights and avoid the country becoming a “safe haven” for terrorists.

Guterres also warned that it is “a fantasy” to think UN involvement in Afghanistan under Taliban rule can suddenly bring about an inclusive government, respect for rights, or exclude the presence there of terrorists.

The United Nations has “limited capacity and limited leverage,” he said, but it is playing a key role in attempts to provide humanitarian assistance to the war-torn country.

“There is clearly a fight for power within different groups in the Taliban leadership. The situation is not yet clarified,” Guterres said in an interview with Associated Press ahead of the UN General Assembly high-level debate that begins on September 21.

The Taliban announced an “acting” government on September 7 whose composition included veteran Taliban figures on UN and U.S. blacklists and drew almost exclusively from hardest line of the ultraconservative Islamist group.

Guterres noted the trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of troops the United States and other countries devoted for decades to trying to address Afghan problems until their recent withdrawal as Taliban forces captured most of the country.

He told AP it was unrealistic to think the United Nations “will be able all of a sudden to produce an inclusive government, to guarantee that all human rights are respected, to guarantee that no terrorists will ever exist in Afghanistan, that drug trafficking will stop.”

But Guterres also told CNN that UN officials were engaging with the Taliban on humanitarian efforts.

He also said the United Nations was trying “to make them understand that to have solidarity from the international community and to be able one day to have recognition from the international community, they need to deliver on the aspects that are very important for us — the human rights for girls and for women, for women the right to work, for girls the right to be at school at all levels, that it would be very important for them to cooperate with the international community to avoid Afghanistan to be a safe haven for terrorists.”

No foreign government has recognized the Taliban-led government, which declared its intention to rule by its strict interpretation of Shari’a law, and reports of revenge attacks and other abuses have continued to proliferate.

U.S. officials have already warned of the reemergence in Afghanistan of international terrorist threats like the group Islamic State (IS) or its local affiliate, Islamic State-Khorasan (IS-K), which claimed responsibility for a deadly attack with crowds massed outside Kabul airport on August 26.

The IS’s media arm on September 19 posted a claim of responsibility for multiple bombings over the weekend that targeted Taliban vehicles in eastern Afghanistan, a longtime Taliban stronghold.

The claim could not immediately be corroborated, but at least eight people, including Taliban fighters, were said to have been killed in attacks in Jalalabad on September 18 and 19.

Based on reporting by AP and CNN

Copyright (c) 2021. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

Pakistani Police Open Case Against Cleric For Hoisting Taliban Flag Above Seminary

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Cleric Maulana Abdul Aziz

By Radio Mashaal
September 19, 2021

Police in Pakistan have opened a case against an influential cleric after he hoisted the Taliban flag over the building of an important religious seminary in the nation’s capital of Islamabad.

Maulana Abdul Aziz, a Taliban supporter who wants Pakistan to enforce Islamic Shari’a law in the country, raised the white-and-black flag of the militant group over the Jamia Hafsa religious seminary for female students last month after the Taliban took control of neighboring Afghanistan.

Aziz’s action underscores the strong support for the militant group within Pakistan, where media, religious parties, and even some government officials openly celebrated the Taliban takeover of Kabul in August.

The 58-year-old Aziz, who reportedly had links with the terrorist organization Al-Qaeda, served a two-year prison term after leading a rebellion at the Jamia Hafsa and Red Mosque in 2007 in which dozens of people, including his younger brother, were killed.

A police official at Abpara Police Station told Radio Mashaal on September 19 that they opened a case against Aziz a day earlier on charges of sedition and terrorism after he refused to remove the flags from atop Jamia Hafsa.

Aziz and his supporters blocked the police from entering the building to remove the flags, said the officer, who requested anonymity due to the sensitivity of the case.

The Office of the Deputy Commissioner Islamabad tweeted on September 18 that the flags had been removed from the building, that the area had been “cleared,” and the “case” had been “registered” against the cleric.

Dozens of police officers were deployed near the Red Mosque and Jamia Hafsa on September 19 to maintain peace in the area. None of Aziz’s followers have been detained, the official added.

Aziz sent an audio statement to media on September 18 saying that he removed the flags after authorities promised to reopen another mosque linked to the Jamia Hafsa and appoint a prayer leader and cleric.

That mosque has remained closed since the government’s 2007 offensive against the militants led by Aziz.

Authorities in Islamabad have “sealed” the case against Aziz for the time being, meaning that they will not take any legal action against him, a top administrative official told Radio Mashaal on September 19. The official did not give a reason for the decision to seal the case.

The influential cleric still has a very big following and, despite his attempted rebellion, the government did not remove him as head of Jamia Hafsa and the Red Mosque. However, the authorities did ban him from delivering sermons or from running the seminaries.

Aziz and his followers first hoisted the Afghan Taliban flag on the building of the seminary after the militant group took control of the country in mid-August but then removed it due to government pressure.

He hoisted the flag on September 17 again, prompting the police action a day later.

“We have worked for the establishment of an Islamic system” of governance in Pakistan before and “we will continue our efforts,” Aziz said in the statement.

Aziz was arrested in 2007 as he attempted to flee following his failed rebellion and later jailed. When he was released by the Supreme Court of Pakistan two years later, he was greeted by tens of thousands of his supporters.

Copyright (c) 2021. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

Afghan Women Stage Protest In Kabul To Demand Right To Work, Study

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Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
September 19, 2021

A group of Afghan women staged a protest in the capital, Kabul, on September 19, to demand the right to work and study.

Videos shared by local media show a group of nearly two dozen women gathering in front of what was until recently the Women’s Affairs Ministry, chanting “women’s rights and human rights.”

Some were holding up signs calling for the participation of women in public life. “A society in which women are not active is [a] dead society,” one sign read.

The protest lasted for about 10 minutes. The women left after a verbal confrontation with an unidentified man.

In recent days, the new Taliban-led government issued several decrees rolling back the rights of girls and women.

Afghan girls were excluded from returning to secondary school on September 18, after the Taliban-led government ordered only boys and male teachers to return to the classroom.

Primary schools had already reopened, with boys and girls attending separate classes and some female teachers returning to work.

On September 19, the interim mayor of Kabul told female employees in the city government to stay home, with work only allowed for those who cannot be replaced by men.

Last week, the Taliban shut down the Women’s Affairs Ministry, replacing it with a ministry for the “propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice” and tasked with enforcing Islamic law.

Since the Taliban took power in Kabul, Afghan women held several days of protests across the capital and other cities in which they demanded the hard-line Islamists respect their human rights. The protests were violently broken up by Taliban fighters.

Based on reporting by AP and dpa

Copyright (c) 2021. 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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