8am: The crisis in Afghanistan is so deep-rooted that even by freeing up foreign exchange reserves and providing cash assistance, it cannot be prevented. The Taliban’s policies are exacerbating the crisis and collapse in Afghanistan, the report stated. Click here to read more (external link).
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Ariana: The Emergency Hospital in Kabul has confirmed four people were wounded in an IED explosion in Salim Karwan square in PD4 around midday Thursday. The hospital said a child was among the injured adding the incident was caused by a magnetic IED attached to a vehicle. Click here to read more (external link).
Taliban Sohail Shaheen
Ayaz Gul
VOA News
December 2, 2021
ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN — Afghanistan’s ruling Taliban criticized the United Nations Thursday for postponing a decision on who would represent the country at the world body.
“This decision is not based on legal rules and justice because they have deprived the people of Afghanistan of their legitimate right,” Suhail Shaheen, the Taliban’s permanent representative-designate to the U.N., said in a statement posted on Twitter.
“We hope that this right is handed over to the representative of the government of Afghanistan in the near future so that we can be in a position to resolve issues of the people of Afghanistan effectively and efficiently and maintain positive interaction with the world,” Shaheen wrote.
The U.N. Credentials Committee, which approves each member state’s representation, held closed-door discussions Wednesday on the requests by the Taliban and military junta ruling Myanmar to replace the envoys of the governments they had ousted.
“The committee has decided to defer its decision of the credentials in these two situations,” Swedish U.N. Ambassador Anna Karin Enestrom, who heads the nine-member committee, told reporters following members’ closed-door discussions.
The decision means the Taliban and Myanmar’s junta will not be allowed to represent their countries for now at the United Nations.
The Islamist Taliban seized power in mid-August from the Western-backed previous Afghan government as the United States and allied troops withdrew from the country after two decades of war.
Myanmar’s military junta seized power in a coup in February.
Neither regime has received international recognition as both are considered pariahs by the world at large.
The international community is pressing the Taliban to install an inclusive government and protect rights of women as well as Afghan minorities.
The interim all-male Taliban government mostly consists of members of the hardline group and some of them are on U.N. sanctions lists. The hardline group dismisses criticism of its government as unjust and calls it representative of all Afghans.
The United States and European countries imposed stringent economic sanctions on the Taliban after they took control of the country and blocked the group’s access to billions of dollars in Afghan foreign assets.
The punitive action has plunged Afghanistan into economic upheavals, worsening a humanitarian crisis that stems from years of war, poverty and a prolonged drought.
The lack of legitimacy recognition of the Taliban government is hampering global efforts to send urgently needed humanitarian assistance to the country where the U.N. estimates nearly 23 million Afghans will suffer from acute hunger this winter.
Radio Farda
December 1, 2021
Iran’s border guards and the Taliban ended clashes along a segment of the border in what Iranian state media reported was a “misunderstanding” from the Afghan side.
The skirmishes “ended with the intervention and negotiation of security forces, and the situation in the area is now calm,” Iranian state media IRNA reported on December 1.
Unverified videos posted by Afghanistan’s Aamaj news agency showed Iranian border guards and Taliban fighters exchanging fire along a border wall near the Afghan province of Nimroz.
A local source in Nimroz told RFE/RL that Iranian forces also used artillery.
Iran’s semi-official Tasnim news agency, citing an unnamed source, said that initial reports claiming the Taliban had captured Iranian border posts were false.
There was no mention of casualties by either side.
Iranian state media said the clashes erupted over confusion by the Taliban about the official border line.
Tasnim said Iran erected a border wall a few hundred meters from the official border with Afghanistan to stop smugglers.
Iranian farmers reportedly crossed to the other side of the wall to use the land inside Iran’s borders, but because of the walls the Taliban thought Afghanistan’s borders had been violated.
Al Jazeera: Afghanistan’s elected government was in charge of the pavilion. But after the Taliban takeover of the country in August, the fate of the pavilion became uncertain. Following the fall of the government in Kabul, the pavilion remained empty when Expo 2020 opened on October 1. Click here to read more (external link).
8am: The Foreign Ministry of the Taliban says that a Saudi diplomatic team has arrived in Kabul. The purpose of the Saudi government’s diplomatic team is to resume diplomatic activities in Kabul, tweeted Abdul Qahar Balkhi the Foreign Ministry spokesman today Wednesday, December 1. Click here to read more (external link).
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Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
December 1, 2021
The United Nations refugee agency is urging Afghanistan’s neighbors to open their borders to Afghans seeking to flee their war-torn country — even if they don’t have documentation.
Afghanistan’s land borders with Pakistan and Iran are currently open “almost solely” to Afghans with the required passports and visas, while the borders of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are “closed entirely” to them, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said in a statement on December 1.
The UNHCR “is profoundly concerned by escalating risks faced by Afghans seeking to flee” into neighboring states as the situation within their country “continues to deteriorate” following the takeover in August by Taliban militants.
The agency reported restrictions on girls’ education, the women’s movement and the ability to work, the targeting of religious and ethnic minorities, as well as the intimidation and killing of human rights activists, as hinderances to the day-to-day lives of up to half the Afghan population, and barriers to humanitarian assistance.
As deportations have “escalated” from Pakistan, Iran, and Tajikistan since the Taliban takeover, the UNHCR called on the authorities of all countries to cease the forced return of Afghans, noting that many of them may be in need of refugee protection.
It estimates that Iran has deported an average of 3,000 Afghans daily between August and November, while some 1,800 deportations from Pakistan were reported in September and October. It also cited the deportation of 23 Afghan asylum-seekers, including women and children, from Tajikistan over the past month.
UNHCR warned that “economic deterioration and widespread hunger in Afghanistan may compel thousands more to leave the country to survive.”
Afghanistan is on the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe, with more than half of its population at risk of not having enough to eat during the winter, according to the UN.
Ajmal Ahmadi
8am: Some former employees of Afghanistan’s Central Bank and the Ministry of Commerce and Industries have written an open letter to Harvard University officials, asking them to dismiss Ajmal Ahmadi, the former head of the Central Bank, from the university’s academic staff… Ajmal Ahmadi has been accused of constantly abusing his authority for personal gain and obstructing transparency and accountability during his tenure at the Central Bank and the Ministry of Commerce and Industries. Click here to read more (external link).
Ron Synovitz
RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi
December 1, 2021
Dozens of Taliban gunmen stormed the offices of Afghanistan’s Independent Bar Association (AIBA) in Kabul last week and ordered its staff to stop their work.
In a decree issued a day earlier on November 22, the Taliban put the AIBA under the control of its Justice Ministry, stripping the organization of its independence.
Taliban Justice Minister Mullah Abdul Hakim also declared that only Taliban-approved lawyers can work in their Islamic courts, effectively revoking the licenses of some 2,500 lawyers in Afghanistan.
His order has raised deep concerns about the impartiality and fairness of criminal trials under the Taliban, which seized control of the country in August after toppling the internationally recognized government.
Those fears have been exacerbated by the Taliban’s brutal form of justice. Under their tribal interpretation of Shari’a law, Taliban judges have routinely ordered public executions and amputations for convicted criminals.
Legal experts say the Taliban’s decree flouts international norms meant to ensure that people accused of crimes have access to impartial legal assistance in order to receive a fair trial.
“The [Taliban’s] grip is tightening,” says Samiullah Hamidee, a civil activist from the southern province of Helmand who founded the Organization for Social and Economic Development (OSED) before the Taliban takeover. “Access to independent legal [assistance] will soon become a thing of the past.”
“[The] lines are blurring,” Hamidee warned on Twitter. “A lawyer, prosecutor, and judge can be the same person at the same time.”
The Brussels-based Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) says the moves means that all women are now excluded from the legal profession in Afghanistan, as well as “any lawyer with a legal education that is not in line with Shari’a or with the Taliban regime.”
“This will therefore exclude the possibility for any lawyer to exercise their profession freely and independently, making the protection of human rights in Afghanistan practically impossible,” the CCBE said in a November 25 letter to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
The CCBE urged the European Union to take “urgent action” to support Afghan lawyers and the independence of their professional association.
‘Forcibly’ Taking Over
The AIBA president who was ousted by the Taliban, Rohullah Qarizada, said in a November 23 tweet that “50 armed Taliban came in AIBA and forcibly took over” the organization.
Qarizada noted that the AIBA had always operated as an “independent, non-governmental, and non-political” association that never received funding from the Afghan government.
He appealed for international assistance, saying the rights of Afghan lawyers should not be ignored.
AIBA member Banu Ahmadi told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi that Taliban guards have prevented other AIBA staff and members from entering their offices since the building was “attacked by the Taliban.”
Tamana Siddiqui, another association member, told Radio Azadi that the Taliban decree amounts to removing the legal credentials of several thousand lawyers in Afghanistan — including hundreds of women who were licensed attorneys.
Siddiqui says the closure of the AIBA damages the integrity of the administration of justice in Afghanistan.
When questioned by Radio Azadi about the decree, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid denied that the AIBA has been shut down.
“This association is not closed,” Mujahid claimed. “Lawyers have only been told to get a license from the Justice Ministry to operate under the supervision of the ministry. To prevent bribery and corruption, they have been told to get a license” from the ministry before they can practice law.
Jurist, a U.S.-based international legal news and commentary website, quoted its correspondent in Kabul as saying that the Taliban decree “does not state anything regarding the structure of AIBA.”
“The ministry interpreted the decision as authorizing it to bring AIBA under its structure and requested lawyers to obtain licenses from them,” said the correspondent, a law student whose name was withheld for security reasons. “The person appointed as the new AIBA head is said to be part of the Ministry of Justice but has no relevant experience.”
The London-based International Bar Association (IBA) has warned that such moves eliminate “safeguards” that should be in place “to avoid any possible suggestion of collusion, arrangement or dependence” between authorities and an attorney who defends those accused of a crime.
No Due Process
Haroun Rahimi, a self-exiled assistant law professor for the Kabul-based American University of Afghanistan, says the Taliban has essentially “annexed” the country’s bar association to its Justice Ministry and “put a Talib in charge.”
Rahimi says the move is an ominous sign about how the shadow courts of the Taliban’s insurgency are now being transformed into the state’s new judicial system.
“It’s important that the [AIBA] survives,” Rahimi says. “Attorneys should continue their work, but lack of independence is concerning. Under the rule of law, the legal profession must remain independent.”
But Rahimi notes that Taliban courts in the past also have often dispensed with “procedural restrictions” under Islamic law — particularly when Taliban judges have ordered public executions or amputations — “because they don’t see due process as an important issue.”
“They don’t have a pinch of due process at all,” Rahimi told RFE/RL. “In Islamic history, there are strong evidential safeguards against enforcing such punishments. But the Taliban don’t see it that way. They often have very quick criminal trials and they have not followed all the procedural safeguards that are in place in other countries under Islamic law.”
“It goes back to [the] idea of punishment as a mechanism of control,” Rahimi explains. “If you don’t have a strong state apparatus where you can actually control the population, more violent and spectacular public forms of punishment become a mechanism of control.”
Rahimi says that explains why Taliban punishments in the past were “so cruel and public and theatrical — whereas in other countries that are under Islamic law, it’s sort of sanitized under state institutions and prisons and such.”
During its brutal rule of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, Taliban courts used their tribal interpretations of Shari’a law under the Hanafi school of jurisprudence to prescribe extreme public punishments.
They amputated the hands of convicted thieves, flogged people for drinking alcohol, and shot or stoned to death those it found guilty of engaging in adultery. Executions were common.
Kabul’s national Ghazi Stadium became an infamous symbol of the Taliban’s brutality as punishments were carried out on the soccer field in front of large crowds.
Since returning to power, the Taliban has signaled a return to some of its past methods.
In September, the Taliban hanged four dead bodies from cranes in the western city of Herat, local media and witnesses reported. The men, accused of taking part in a kidnapping, were killed in clashes with the Taliban.
Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, the chief enforcer of the Taliban’s interpretation of Islamic law when the group last ruled Afghanistan, said the militants will once again carry out executions and amputations — though perhaps without as much public fanfare as in the past.
Written and reported by Ron Synovitz with reporting by RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi