By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi July 27, 2023 The Council of Shi’ite Scholars of Afghanistan on July 26 published a declaration calling on mourners to scale back their activities during ceremonies to mark the start of Muharram, the first month of the Islamic calendar. The council’s declaration called on mourners to refrain from programs and street processions
Abubakar Siddique Mansoor Khosrow Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty July 17, 2023 When the Taliban seized power in 2021, Afghanistan’s Shi’ite Hazara minority feared that the historically persecuted community would once again become the main target of Taliban atrocities. During its first stint in power from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban terrorized the group, wresting control
Ayaz Gul VOA News March 11, 2023 ISLAMABAD — A bomb blast tore through a Shiite cultural center in Afghanistan’s northern Balkh province Saturday, killing a security guard and wounding at least eight people. A local police spokesman, Mohammad Asif Waziri, told VOA the blast had targeted a ceremony honoring the Afghan media in the
8am: In the announcement issued by the Taliban-appointed district governor in Nusay district of Badakhshan province, it is stated: “Regarding religious and ideological considerations, all ethnic groups in the territory of this district are instructed that from now on, no one from Sunni followers will be allowed to give a daughter to a Shia follower,
By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi November 17, 2022 The lives lost when a bomb tore through the Kaaj Higher Education Center in Kabul, killing scores of students and educators, can never be replaced. But the victims’ desire for learning lives on thanks to book drives to establish libraries in their honor. Fifty-eight people were killed and 126
8am: According to sources, the Taliban have also forced the local residents in the district to bring them food. The residents meanwhile said that they cannot provide food for the Taliban because of the poor economy. Sources have stated that the public library is in Dawood area of the district which has been turned into
By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi October 1, 2022 Several dozen Afghans, mostly women, have protested after a suicide bombing killed dozens of mostly female students preparing for university entrance exams in Kabul. Police have put the death toll in the September 30 attack at “at least 20 people,” while the United Nations told the AFP news agency
By RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi September 30, 2022 A suicide bombing struck an education center in a predominantly Shi’ite neighborhood of the Afghan capital on September 30, killing 19 people and wounding 27, a Taliban-appointed spokesman for the Kabul police chief said. The explosion inside the center in the Dashti Barchi neighborhood populated by Hazaras, a mostly Shi’ite ethnic
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
The Washington Times: Police have identified the man arrested in two of a string of killings of Muslim men in the past year — another Muslim. Muhammad Syed [an Afghan], 51, has reportedly been charged with murder in the deaths of two Muslim men in Albuquerque, New Mexico. According to local Muslim leaders cited in