According to some political analysts, investing in the education of girls and boys in the country is a serious need.
Yasmine Sherif, Executive Director of the UN’s Education Cannot Wait (ECW), on the occasion of International Literacy Day, said that the official opinion of the ruling authorities in Afghanistan about the education of women in the country contravenes the UN Charter and international human rights.
Speaking at the press conference, Sherif added that the UN offers various training programs in negotiations with the local commanders in Afghanistan.
Sherif said that, given the challenges facing Afghanistan, women’s inclusion in society is crucial for the nation’s rebuilding.
“We are still delivering education in certain provinces of Afghanistan, these can be home based schools, and these can be locally negotiated agreements with local commanders,” Yasmine Sherif said.
“After the Islamic Emirate arrived in Afghanistan, the scope of education was expanded to 100% of the country’s territory, and a very good progress was made in the expansion of education,” said Bilal Karimi, deputy spokesperson of the Islamic Emirate.
The Executive Director of Education Cannot Wait (ECW), added that they need more funding to provide education services to 20 million children, including in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and a number of African countries.
“To reach another twenty million children and adolescents in the coming years from Afghanistan, to Mali, Burkina Faso, South Sudan, Sudan, the regional refugee crisis, in Egypt, Chad, Ethiopia, Central African Republic or South Sudan, across the Sahel, the Venezuelan refugees and Latin America … We have the coordination system in place but it we have more funding we could help more than twenty million,” Sherif noted.
According to some political analysts, investing in the education of girls and boys in the country is a serious need.
“Anyone who wants to develop Afghanistan and anyone who has an idea of the progress of Afghanistan should invest in the education sector,” said Mohammadi, a political analyst.
Nearly 720 days have passed since schools have been closed for girls above sixth grade in Afghanistan, and until now there is no news of their reopening.
The Islamic Emirate has consistently stated that efforts are being made to reopen the country’s schools and universities for girls and that the ban on women and girls’ education is not permanent.
UN Education Official Comments on Education of Afghan Women
They added that the terrorist presence in Afghanistan has been waning despite the US military’s withdrawal from the country in 2021.
New US intelligence assessments suggest that it is “unlikely” al Qaeda will revive in Afghanistan and Pakistan and that counterterrorism operations by the “Taliban” in Afghanistan have degraded the Islamic State’s presence there, senior US officials said on Friday.
They added that the terrorist presence in Afghanistan has been waning despite the US military’s withdrawal from the country in 2021.
According to US officials, “ISIS-K has been under increasing pressure from the Taliban and many of its key leaders have fled the country in recent months,” and “the threat from al Qaeda, meanwhile, is at its lowest point in decades.”
The Islamic Emirate’s spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said that the soil of Afghanistan is safe and that no terrorist group exists on Afghan territory.
“There is no doubt that we created a government that ensures security, and all sides accept that Afghanistan is safe and is not a threat to anyone and is not a problem for anyone,” Mujahid noted.
Some analysts asked the current government to take the necessary measures against terrorist groups, especially the Khorasan branch of Daesh, in order to reassure the international community.
“The strictness of the Taliban government against Daesh is already tangible, and the fact that an American official expresses optimism is a positive step,” said Asadullah Nadim, a military analyst.
“A positive view can have positive effect on diplomatic relations between countries,” said Sadiq Shinwari, another military analyst.
Earlier, US President Joe Biden in response to a question about “mistakes in Afghanistan withdrawal,” said: “Remember what I said about Afghanistan? I said al-Qaida would not be there. I said it wouldn’t be there. I said we’d get help from the Taliban. What’s happening now? What’s going on? Read your press. I was right.”
US Officials: ‘Unlikely’ Al Qaeda Will Revive in Afghanistan
The Afghan statesman Zalmai Rassoul is recognized by the governments of the United Kingdom and Ireland—but not by the Taliban.
Photographs by Silvana Trevale for The New Yorker
King Amanullah Khan of Afghanistan, who reigned after his country gained independence from Great Britain, in 1919, collected automobiles and tried to modernize Afghan society through reforms such as compulsory education. In 1925, his government purchased a new Embassy in London, a four-story mid-Victorian edifice at Princes Gate, across Kensington Road from Hyde Park, near the Royal Albert Hall. The King’s change agenda provoked a violent revolt, however, and in 1929 Amanullah fled Kabul, reportedly in a Rolls-Royce. (He died in Switzerland in 1960.) Yet the London Embassy remained—a graceful and rapidly appreciating possession of an isolated, often vulnerable nation.
Zalmai Rassoul, a nephew of Amanullah’s who is now eighty years old, today lives alone in an apartment on the Embassy’s upper floors. In 2020, President Ashraf Ghani appointed Rassoul as the Ambassador to the United Kingdom and Ireland. In June, 2021, Queen Elizabeth II met him over Zoom, to accept his credentials in the U.K. By that time, the Taliban had stormed dozens of Afghan district capitals, in an escalating offensive against Ghani’s Islamic Republic, the constitutional regime that had been created after the U.S.-led invasion in 2001 and was protected for almost two decades by nato troops. On August 15th, Kabul fell, and Ghani fled in a helicopter. As the Taliban took over the government, Rassoul stayed put at Princes Gate.
Since then, neither the United Nations nor any of its member states has recognized the Islamic Emirate, as the Taliban call their regime, largely because it seized power by force and imposed draconian restrictions on female education and on the ability of Afghan women to work freely. In the autumn of 2021, the British Foreign Office informed Rassoul that he could carry on as Ambassador. Almost two years later, the Islamic Republic’s red, green, and black flag still flies above the Embassy’s entrance. “So far, we are guests of the United Kingdom,” Rassoul told me recently, over tea in a cavernous ground-floor office. “It’s very strange,” he conceded. “When I’m asked who you are representing, I say, ‘The Afghan people,’ because we don’t have anymore a government.”
The Taliban, of course, would beg to differ. “We believe that all embassies belong to the state of Afghanistan and should be handed over to the authorities in power” so that the Islamic Emirate can run them in a “transparent and effective manner,” Abdul Qahar Balkhi, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Kabul, told me. Rassoul is not the only Ghani-era squatter in an Afghan Embassy. When Kabul fell, the country maintained around forty Embassies around the world. Today, as many as twenty—mainly in Europe, but also in Ottawa and Seoul and a few other places—are still run by Republic-era diplomats. In Beijing, Islamabad, and other capitals, however, governments have accepted Taliban-appointed diplomats, even while withholding formal recognition of the regime. Balkhi said that fourteen Embassies are now managed by “newly appointed diplomats,” while at a number of other outposts diplomats from the Republic era “are fully coördinating with Kabul.”
Of all the Republic-era Ambassadors, Rassoul is by far the most politically prominent. He was educated in France as a nephrologist and worked as a doctor and a medical researcher in Saudi Arabia during the nineteen-eighties, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan stirred an uprising by mujahideen rebels armed by the C.I.A. Later, during the first era of Taliban rule, he moved to Rome to serve as a political adviser to Zahir Shah, the exiled former King whose father had restored the country’s monarchy after Amanullah’s departure, and who reigned over a period of relative stability and prosperity from the early nineteen-thirties until 1973, when he was ousted in a coup d’état. After the Taliban were removed from power, Rassoul became national-security adviser and then foreign minister under President Hamid Karzai. (Karzai has remained in Kabul since the Taliban takeover. Ghani is in the U.A.E.) Later, in 2014, Rassoul ran unsuccessfully for the Presidency. Youthful-looking for his years, he possesses the gentle manners of a royal scion, and is a rare leader from the Republic era who is not a lightning rod for his compatriots’ anger. “He’s a gentleman. People respect him,” Nasir Andisha, a Republic-era diplomat still serving in Geneva, and an informal adviser to the anti-Taliban National Resistance Front, told me. “He was probably the least controversial figure in politics in Afghanistan.”
Rassoul has lately been working with other Republic-era Ambassadors and diaspora figures to develop a plan for their country’s future. “I’m a politician, and, wherever I am, I’m involved in politics,” he told me, speaking publicly for the first time about his work and life at the London Embassy. “You know, politics is like a disease, when you get it.” In March, Andisha hosted a meeting of twenty-one Republic-era envoys in Geneva, where they formed the Council of Ambassadors and named Rassoul as a permanent co-chair, with a rotating partner. The envoys all oppose the Taliban. But “war is not a solution,” Rassoul said, and the best place to start is with intra-Afghan dialogue.
Rassoul’s apartment has a charming view of Hyde Park, and it is comfortably if impersonally furnished, suggesting a four-star hotel with Central Asian accents. For a touch of home, the Ambassador has mounted black-and-white photos of his royal ancestors. Each weekday morning at about nine o’clock, he goes downstairs to his office, where he meets Embassy colleagues as well as Afghan and other visitors. (A handful of salaried diplomats, mainly engaged in consular work, and a driver also remain at the Embassy.) At midday, he returns upstairs for lunch, and then goes down again to check on new developments. Sometimes, there aren’t any. Most evenings, he takes a long walk in the park. About twice a week, he plays golf at a nearby course. (He took up the sport while in exile in Rome.) Other London embassies still invite him to receptions celebrating national holidays or fêting distinguished visitors, and other rituals of diplomatic life. “I will go there and spend half an hour or an hour, just to show that Afghanistan exists,” he said.
Rassoul never married—work always seemed to get in the way, he said—and the only surviving member of his immediate family is a sister living in Brazil. I asked whether he was lonely. “I’m very comfortable here compared to all my compatriots, who, unfortunately, are running around to find a place to stay,” he answered, referring to the tens of thousands of Afghan refugees who had settled in the U.K. in 2021, many of whom have had to navigate overnight transformations from lives of relative privilege to the insecurities and indignities of refugee status. “But, intellectually, I am very frustrated.” Among other things, he still grieves for the Islamic Republic, “this tremendous international effort to bring Afghanistan from ground zero to, despite all the problems, an advanced country in the region.”
Zalmai Rassoul, in the London Embassy.
In the initial months after the Republic’s fall, the Biden Administration and European allies engaged with the Taliban, hoping to address Afghanistan’s severe humanitarian needs and to coöperate on counterterrorism. But, in March of 2022, on instructions from the arch-conservative Supreme Leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban decided to prohibit girls from attending secondary school. Since then, such restrictions have tightened, and, according to U.N. human-rights experts, they now constitute the most oppressive regime for women and girls worldwide. In late June, Richard Bennett, the U.N.’s human-rights rapporteur for Afghanistan, denounced the Taliban’s gender policies as “grave, systemic and institutionalized discrimination.” In this atmosphere, although British and U.S. engagement with the Taliban has continued, Rassoul and other Republic-era diplomats find that they are being welcomed at more official meetings than before. With the Taliban’s permission, Hamid Karzai visited London from Kabul this spring for a private visit with King Charles III; Rassoul joined him for a meeting at the Foreign Office. At a recent session of the U.N. Human Rights Council, in Geneva, the Taliban were excluded, and Nasir Andisha, the Ghani-era diplomat, introduced several Afghan women as speakers.
The Taliban’s strategy appears to be to wait out the recalcitrant Ambassadors while its government pursues formal recognition, aided by what has thus far been qualified but significant diplomatic support from China and Russia. Strikingly, the Taliban’s foreign ministry has not tried as yet to disrupt the consular work of non-Taliban Embassies. Indeed, according to Rassoul, the London Embassy funds its reduced operations with fees earned from issuing travel visas, passport extensions, birth certificates, and marriage certificates—and the Taliban still recognize most of these documents. “We attach great importance to serving and resolving problems of Afghans,” Balkhi said, when I asked him why the Taliban do so. Some Taliban officials travel on Islamic Republic-era passports, a Western official told me, because the Taliban have not yet issued their own. Even if they did, Taliban passports might not work very well, since the Kabul government has not been formally recognized.
Rassoul declined to say how much revenue the London Embassy generates through consular work, but it is apparently enough to fund the salaries of the staff. There is some tension between those Republic-era Ambassadors who can raise revenue from consular services provided to sizable Afghan populations (there are some hundred and fifty thousand Afghans living in Britain, according to Rassoul) and those who have no such population to serve. Afghanistan’s U.N. mission, in New York, which has never had a consular function, has fallen into arrears on utility bills. Naseer Faiq, a Republic-era career diplomat, is the mission’s chargé d’affaires—recognized by the U.N. but not the Taliban. “I have been trying to communicate this situation to the management of the building,” he told me. “Of course, this is not easy.” I asked how he pays for groceries. “My wife is working, and she is supporting us,” he said.
The struggle for control of the Embassies is partly rooted in the unsuccessful U.S. diplomacy that aided the Taliban’s military victory two years ago. In 2018, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo chose Zalmay Khalilzad, who had served as the U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the U.N. during the George W. Bush Administration, to negotiate with the Taliban. In February, 2020, the two sides announced a deal in which the U.S. promised to withdraw all its troops by May, 2021, in exchange for pledges that the Taliban would prevent Al Qaeda and other groups from launching attacks. Because the Taliban refused to deal with Ghani’s regime, the Republic was largely left out of the negotiations, and later talks between the Taliban and Ghani’s representatives foundered, leaving the Taliban free to pursue a military victory. Joe Biden inherited the diplomatic accord, and, although he described it as “perhaps not what I would have negotiated myself,” in April, 2021, he nonetheless said that the U.S. would pull out all its troops by September 11th. That announcement precipitated the Islamic Republic’s rapid collapse, culminating in the infamous scenes of evacuation and chaos at the Kabul airport in August. “It was a de-facto recognition of the Taliban as the future government of Afghanistan,” Rassoul said, of the U.S. decision to negotiate directly with the Republic’s enemies. He now wants to give diplomacy a chance partly because Afghanistan’s history suggests that no dictatorship of the Taliban’s kind is likely to last long, and so preparations should be made now for what may follow. In any event, “We cannot just sit,” he told me. “If we don’t want the use of force, a war, and we don’t do anything politically, that means we accept the situation with the Taliban there.”
After the Taliban takeover, a number of nations—including the U.K., France, Germany, Poland, Australia, India, and Kuwait—allowed senior Republic-era diplomats to remain at Afghan Embassies. In Washington, D.C., however, a different story unfolded. When Kabul fell, Adela Raz, a thirty-five-year-old woman with a master’s degree in law and diplomacy from Tufts, led the Embassy in Washington, on Wyoming Avenue. On October 27, 2021, Citibank froze the Embassy’s accounts, citing the requirements of U.S. sanctions imposed against the Taliban. Raz and her then counterpart at the U.N., Ghulam Isaczai, wrote to Secretary of State Antony Blinken, urging him to unblock the accounts. They cited the “critical services” that the Embassy provided to tens of thousands of Afghan refugees then pouring into the U.S., and argued that Citibank’s application of sanctions was mistaken, saying, “We continue to function solely as servants of the Afghan people and do not maintain any association with, work at the direction of, or pay any funds to the Taliban.” In January, after some back-and-forth, the State Department sent the Afghan Embassy an unsigned diplomatic note—a kind of official memorandum—that described Citibank’s actions as “independent” of the Biden Administration, and judged that it was “highly unlikely” the bank would unblock the Embassy funds. (Citi declined to comment.)
So the Biden Administration proposed to take “custodial” charge of the Washington Embassy and two Afghan consulates in the U.S.—but not the mission to the U.N.—meaning that the U.S. would pay for the properties’ upkeep and manage access. Raz could remain as Ambassador, the diplomatic note said, but all other Afghan diplomats accredited in the U.S. would be terminated, and their diplomatic visas would be cancelled. Raz declined to stay in place without her colleagues, according to people familiar with the matter, and took a position at Princeton’s School of Public and International Affairs. (Raz declined to comment.) Early in 2022, the State Department took control of the Afghan properties and shut them, which was a “normal procedure for embassies when they cannot support operations financially,” a department spokesperson told me. “U.S. officials engaged with the Afghan Embassy and its bank, but were unable to identify an immediate solution. . . . The Embassy’s underlying financial challenge was that it was no longer receiving funds from Kabul.” When I walked by the chancery on a recent weekday, no flag flew from it.
The D.C. Embassy’s fate reflects a larger truth about Afghanistan in Washington these days: it is an unpopular subject, partly because the Islamic Republic’s fall has become a talking point in polarized partisan politics. On a recent visit to Washington, Andisha was struck by the indifference and resignation he encountered among policymakers and regional specialists. He summed up what he heard as “The Taliban suck, but we have to have some coöperation with them. . . . And there is no alternative.”
It is appealing to imagine that diplomacy—an “intra-Afghan dialogue,” or the like—might address Afghanistan’s fragmentation and perhaps coax the Taliban toward political pluralism. But, in 2021, at a time when Ghani’s regime controlled a large army, the capital, and major cities, the Islamic Republic’s efforts to negotiate failed miserably; it is hard to see why the Taliban would make concessions now. The Council of Ambassadors is one of a number of organizing efforts led by Islamic Republic-era figures in exile. The National Resistance Front, led by Ahmad Massoud, the son of the anti-Taliban guerrilla leader Ahmad Shah Massoud, has mounted armed resistance in northern Afghanistan, but has been battered by brutal Taliban counterattacks and reprisals against civilians. In general, there is little comity among the diaspora’s political factions. After the shock of Kabul’s fall, “There’s a level of mistrust,” Sima Samar, the former chairwoman of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, told me. “Maybe the U.N. or the U.S. or Europe could bring people together . . . to facilitate an understanding or rebuilding of trust.”
It isn’t clear, though, who should participate in such an effort, or whether Western involvement would help. “My message to Afghan political actors has always been to organize themselves and then summon the international community,” Thomas West, the Biden Administration’s special representative for Afghanistan, told me. Younger Afghan activists are trying to assert themselves, pointing out that they are uncompromised by the Republic’s failures. “I’m not a Talib and I’ll never be a Talib, but I do recognize that we’re all on the same ship and it’s sinking,” Obaidullah Baheer, an adjunct lecturer at the American University of Afghanistan, who is now a doctoral student at the New School, told me. Baheer is part of a loose network of next-generation advocates who have emerged on social media and at international conferences since 2021. “Everyone—especially the international community—wants short-term fixes,” Baheer added. “As always, they look for the silver bullet. That has never really helped Afghanistan.”
I asked Rassoul why he thought the Republic failed. “It’s our fault,” he said. “We could not consolidate democracy.” Afghans “participated in elections, taking the risk. You have seen that. But the institutions in Afghanistan destroyed the democratic process. . . . Corruption played a key role.” So did Afghanistan’s status as a ward of rich nations. “We believed they would be there for a long time and give us money,” he said, but “it was a miracle that the international community believed in Afghanistan for twenty years.”
The Taliban, meanwhile, have shown little interest in talking to exiled politicians or in any process that does not recognize their sovereignty and legitimacy. “The Islamic Emirate has opened its doors for all Afghans, whether living inside or outside Afghanistan, to hold meetings and discussions about issues with the leadership,” Balkhi said. These meetings “take place nearly every single day with tribal elders, scholars, academics, and other strata of society.” If exiles want to participate, he implied, they can come home.
Zalmai Rassoul seems unlikely to do so. In his ninth decade, he is enduring his third exile, and the royalist branches of Afghan politics to which he belongs have had a rough time since the nineteen-seventies, attacked by Communists and Islamists alike. Still, royals in exile can be susceptible to dreams of restoration, no matter how implausible the path may appear. “There is some sort of nostalgia,” he said. “Now that the Republic has been a failure, a lot of people give reference to the monarchy time [as] a really good time in Afghanistan. Maybe some people think that a monarchy—a constitutional monarchy, maybe—is good for Afghanistan.” Rassoul said that he himself does not support that idea, and did not mention his own qualifications, but, when I spoke with Andisha, he volunteered half-jokingly, “If we have a choice later in Afghanistan, we’ll call him a king. That will solve a lot of problems.” ♦
FILE – The Mes Aynak valley, southwest of Kabul, Afghanistan, is pictured March 2, 2022. The unexploited copper source is estimated to be worth nearly $1 trillion. China’s MCC won the contract to exploit the mine over 10 years ago.
WASHINGTON —
The Taliban, facing international sanctions and a dire economic outlook at home, have intensified efforts to leverage Afghanistan’s vast natural resources.
From oil to copper, gold and lithium, the Islamist leadership, unrecognized by any nation as Afghanistan’s legitimate government, has inked multibillion-dollar mining deals with Chinese and other foreign companies.
The landlocked country has plunged deep into economic trouble since Western donors cut off all development assistance, amounting to several billion dollars annually, after the Taliban seized power in August 2021.
Donors have also slashed humanitarian funding for Afghanistan, prompting aid agencies to suspend critical funding for about 10 million Afghans facing acute food insecurity.
Taliban officials contend they are using domestic sources to try to bridge the chasm left by the withdrawal of foreign aid. Critics, however, contend that the Taliban have other intentions.
“What the Taliban see in these contracts is both cash and a diplomatic link to the Chinese government,” said Arian Sharifi, a lecturer at Princeton University’s School of Public and International Affairs.
Afghanistan’s untapped mineral wealth, estimated to be worth trillions of dollars, has historically struggled to attract foreign investment because of security concerns and a lack of infrastructure.
Work under a $3 billion contract signed in 2007 between China Metallurgical Group Corp. and the Afghan government for copper mining has yet to commence, despite a 25-year time frame.
This past January, another Chinese company, Xinjiang Central Asia Petroleum and Gas Company, pledged a $540 million investment until 2026 for oil extraction in northern Afghanistan.
Evading sanctions?
For over three decades, numerous Taliban leaders have remained on the United Nations’ terrorism sanctions list, barring them from foreign business and travel.
Several Western countries, including the United States, Canada and various European nations, have also imposed economic, banking and political sanctions on Taliban individuals and entities.
Spokespersons at the U.S. State and Treasury departments did not answer questions on whether the Taliban’s mining contracts with Chinese companies violated the existing sanctions regime.
“U.S. sanctions generally require U.S. persons and some foreign persons to comply,” said Alex Zerden, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security.
“A foreign company could be violating U.S. sanctions if the company engages in a transaction or dealing with a designated person and the transaction or dealing has a nexus to the United States,” Zerden told VOA.
U.S. sanctions do not necessarily apply to Chinese companies doing business with the Taliban as long as they avoid going through U.S. financial systems, experts say.
“When it comes to bilateral sanctions from the U.S. side, it’s basically that no U.S. entity, be it a company or an individual, is able to do anything with the Taliban. And that has nothing to do with other countries, because other countries don’t abide by bilateral sanctions,” said Princeton’s Sharifi.
China, however, has supported U.N. Security Council Resolution 1988 (2011), which calls on all member states to freeze Taliban assets and economic resources, deny their entry and transit, and prevent the sale, supply and transit of weapons to them.
The U.N. resolution, experts say, needs urgent revisions to respond to the realities in Afghanistan, where the Taliban function as the only governing body.
Like other regimes facing sanctions, the Taliban claim U.N. and U.S. sanctions primarily hurt ordinary people by limiting and weakening the national economy.
Last year, the U.S. government issued exemptions allowing certain commercial transactions with Afghanistan’s governing institutions, except those directly benefiting sanctioned Taliban individuals.
US to Allow All Commercial Transactions with Afghanistan
Graeme Smith, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, said as long as revenue from a business or contract does not go directly into the pockets of sanctioned Taliban officials, fees, taxes or royalties can be paid to the de facto Afghan government.
“In early 2022, the U.S. government specifically clarified that such agreements are permitted under American law,” Smith said, adding that Washington and its allies have strategic interests in the stability of the region, including in the economic revival.
Smith said the lingering effects of sanctions and other economic pressures have hobbled the Afghan banking system, complicating large-scale investments in mining and other sectors.
“Mining requires heavy investment up front, with years of work before profits flow. So, the investors are taking a risk, and making the assumption that the Taliban will guarantee stability and keep their side of the bargain,” he told VOA.
The Chinese Embassy in Washington and the foreign ministry in Beijing did not respond to requests for comment.
While pressing the Taliban on women’s rights and other governance issues — in addition to terrorism-related sanctions — the U.S. government has refrained from supporting anti-Taliban groups that seek to topple the Taliban.
Weakening the Taliban could risk internal war in Afghanistan, thereby giving terrorist groups opportunities to flourish and target other countries, experts say.
“America and its allies have strategic interests in the stability of the region, and that requires economic revival,” said Smith.
International Literacy Day comes as it has been nearly 720 days that girls above the sixth grade in Afghanistan have been denied access to education.
Friday, September 8, is international Literacy Day (ILD).
International Literacy Day comes as it has been nearly 720 days that girls above the sixth grade in Afghanistan have been denied access to education.
Some female students who were deprived of education asked the current government to open schools and universities for girls.
“Today is International Literacy Day, and it has been two years that girls could not continue their education,” said Mehria, a student from Mazar-e-Sharif.
“We ask the Islamic Emirate to reopen schools for girls and give us our rights,” said Zarmina, a student from Jawzjan.
“Once again we ask the Islamic Emirate to lift restrictions on education of girls so that we can continue our education,” said Maryam Sadat, a student from Bamiyan.
Meanwhile, some religious clerics and citizens said that providing the opportunity of education to girls is for the benefit of the country.
“The current rulers should provide the opportunity of going to university to the women of Afghanistan,” said Faiazi, a religious cleric.
“As a father, I ask the government to provide the opportunity of education to the girls of this country,” said Rahimullah, a resident of Mazar-e-Sharif.
The Islamic Emirate hasn’t commented on this recently, but it has consistently stated that efforts are being made to reopen the country’s schools and universities for girls and that the ban on women and girls’ education is not permanent.
On World Literacy Day, Girls Call for Reopening of Schools
The deputy foreign minister once again asked the countries not to interfere in the internal affairs of Afghanistan.
The deputy foreign minister, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, said that the Islamic Emirate is not involved in any terrorist activity in the region, especially in neighboring countries.
Speaking at an event in Kabul marking the 20th anniversary of Kam Air Airlines in Afghanistan, Stanikzai noted that the world has understood that there is no other alternative for Afghanistan except the Islamic Emirate.
“It is recorded in history that no Afghan has ever been involved in terrorist attacks outside of Afghanistan. It was foreigners who came to our homeland and created these problems,” Stanikzai noted.
He also called on the international community, including those who were involved in war for the “past 20 years in Afghanistan” to return and take part in its reconstruction, and that doing so is “their obligation.”
“Those countries that had military forces in Afghanistan and used any kind of weapons in Afghanistan, it is obligatory for them, and according to the Doha agreement, they are also obliged to come to Afghanistan and help in the reconstruction of Afghanistan,” Stanikzai said.
The deputy foreign minister once again asked the countries not to interfere in the internal affairs of Afghanistan.
“Afghanistan has never been a haven for terrorism, Afghanistan has never had such facilities to launch attacks on another country from its soil, and it has not funded or equipped the forty-five-year war in any way,” Yusuf Aminzada, a military analyst told TOLOnews.
This official of the Foreign Ministry further said that the Islamic Emirate accepts criticism but will not allow any elements to damage the interim government through their criticism.
Stanikzai placed emphasis on allocating Iran’s water rights once the Helmand River’s water level rises.
However, the Islamic Emirate called these reports propaganda, saying they will find ways to better ensure women’s rights.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report that “Taliban authorities in Afghanistan are committing the crime against humanity of gender persecution against women and girls.”
According to report, since taking over the country in August 2021, “the Taliban have imposed laws and policies intended to deny women and girls throughout the country their fundamental rights because of their gender.”
“The Taliban’s cruel and methodical denial of the basic rights of women and girls to remove them from public life has received global attention,” said Elizabeth Evenson, international justice director at Human Rights Watch. “Coordinated support by concerned governments is needed to bring the Taliban leaders responsible to justice.”
“Human Rights Watch has issued a report today finding that the Taliban have committed crimes of gender prosecution in Afghanistan against women and girls. Gender prosecution is a crime against humanity. Other organizations have also reached the same finding, those organizations include Amnesty International, International Committee of Jurists. The international criminal court can bring charges and prosecute people and send them to prison ultimately,” said Heather Barr, director of Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch.
However, the Islamic Emirate called these reports propaganda, saying they will find ways to better ensure women’s rights.
“Institutions and groups occasionally engage in propaganda against Afghanistan and make false claims. No one’s rights had been neglected, and all citizens’ Shariah rights have been given,” said Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesman of the Islamic Emirate.
Some women’s rights activists asked the Islamic Emirate to ensure the rights of work and education for women in the country.
“The government should uphold international norms, and accept international laws. Those regarding the education of women and girls, is crucial. They should resolve these issues,” said Suraya Paikan, a women’s rights activist.
In the meantime, Freedom Now non-profit organization said on X that “so far, the Taliban issued over 64 directives, erasing women from public life. We stand in solidarity with Afghan women as they bravely fight for their rights and call on the international community for urgent action in responding to the human rights crisis in Afghanistan.”
HRW Releases Report on Human Rights Situation in Afghanistan
Haqqani said that the door of interaction is open to everyone, and every person can return to the country freely.
Speaking at a gathering in Bamiyan province, acting Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani called on influential political leader Mohammad Mohaqiq and former vice president Mohammad Karim Khalili to return to Afghanistan.
Haqqani said that the door of interaction is open to everyone, and every person can return to the country freely.
“Those influential leaders who are living abroad, such as Instructor (Mohammad Mohaqiq) and Mr. Karim Khalili — I would say that it is bad. They have their tribes and nations and should come back and live as leaders in their own country. Through your address (for your sake), I call on them, that if they consider their tribe and people, as the elders who are sitting here consider them as their own people, and they have respect and honor here– they will give a peaceful message to the people and strengthen the unity of Afghanistan (by returning),” Haqqani said.
Sirajuddin Haqqani, acting interior minister, reiterated that there are no racial and linguistic prejudices in the nation and that the Islamic Emirate will not permit anyone to do this.
He also discussed the unity between the ethnic groups in Afghanistan following the establishment of the Islamic Emirate.
“We do not have a religious war in Afghanistan in our history. If there was a religious war or discrimination, then it is a good example that today we are gathering … and have mutual respect for one another,” Haqqani said.
“With the arrival of the Islamic Emirate, any kind of grudge and disagreements has ended across Afghanistan, especially in Bamiyan,” said Abdullah Sarhadi, the governor of Bamiyan.
The deputy of the Ministry of Urban Development and Housing, Madar Ali Karimi Bamiani, shared his opinion regarding supporting the current system as one of the speakers at this gathering.
“Our people have friendly and pure cooperation with the Islamic system under the name of the Islamic Emirate,” Bamiani said.
This comes as Sirajuddin Haqqani said that the Afghan people are a united nation and that no force can separate them into different ethnic or racial divisions.
Haqqani Asks Mohaqiq, Khalili to Return to Afghanistan
The Taliban have barred us from the workplace, cut our access to healthcare and closed schools to us. Must we struggle alone?
We suddenly all woke in the middle of the night. A piercing cry came from the corner of our room. It was my teenage sister, sobbing in the little room we rent in London. She always used to sleep in the same bed as my mother – until the fall of Kabul.
She wasn’t used to sleeping alone. That night, early in spring, she sobbed until dawn. Her pain was obvious: separation from my mother and a longing that became chronically painful for us all. Since our exile, I have been playing the role of mother, thousands of miles from our parents.
Afghanistan’s fall was not just the takeover of a country, but the separation of its people, including thousands of teenagers like my sister. The fall is also the story of a mother’s comfort, now missing for my sister and me. We miss her arms and the bed we could share, the food she cooked.
When I see my mother’s face, I can’t hold back tears at the deep lines that have settled on her face,
When the Taliban took over again in Afghanistan, countless lives were transformed in horrible and distressing ways. We were catapulted to another country, with a culture and language so different it felt like another planet.
Although being away from parents is exhausting, I still reassure my sister that, as Hazara girls and women, we are the lucky ones who now live in a safe and free country. There are young girls who were forced into marriages inside Afghanistan, and millions of girls have been deprived of basic rights.
Migration is a path that leads to a new world, one full of challenges and opportunities, but it comes at a cost. The feeling of loneliness and distance from family and friends does not leave you for a second.
On 24 August 2021, when I was forced into exile, I had never thought about the difficulties of living away from home and family. I didn’t have time to think because we were all so confused about what had just occurred.
But now, two years into exile, I am only in touch with my mother through WhatsApp; it’s a strange thing but it has become a familiar practice now. When I see my mother’s face, I can’t hold back tears at the deep lines that have settled on her face. In those wrinkles, I see the pain and suffering of the separation of a mother from her loved ones. I weep afterwards.
How did the Taliban manage to create the first gender apartheid system in front of the world?
Reviewing two years of Taliban rule in Afghanistan is full of despair and darkness. The first question is how the Taliban managed to create the first gender apartheid system in front of the world. How was this possible? Why have the women of Afghanistan been abandoned? What happened to those promises that the international community touted all the time?
Today, millions of school-age girls are deprived of education by the Taliban, made possible by the infamous peace deal that the US agreed with the Taliban in Qatar. Today, the universities are closed to women and girls. The opportunity to work has been taken from tens of thousands of women who were breadwinners and heads of their families. Women’s access to health centres is limited, and the heavy burden of poverty and hunger is backbreaking.
The Taliban have excluded women from public life. Can you picture 50% of the population completely isolated in every sense? Why do we Afghan women pay the price for the Taliban’s return?
Afghanistan’s women now have to fight for something basic: the right to leave the house, to go to school and to parks, to get a job. When I founded Rukhshana Media, I never imagined such a dark day. I feel hopeless – not because I don’t have the will to fight, but when I try to describe and draw attention to this exceptional human condition.
During these two years of Taliban rule, I have received images of mutilated bodies of women and men tortured and killed by the Taliban forces. I could never have imagined such violence.
In these two years, we at Rukhshana have written and reported on the pain of protesting women who were flogged by Taliban fighters. We have written about the murder and disappearance of policewomen who, with the support of the west after 9/11, fought against inequalities in a patriarchal society and made room for themselves in the system.
In these past two years, it seems that the vast majority of Afghan men support women’s education, but this consensus has never been utilised as a means of mobilising people against the unacceptable situation under the Taliban. Women are left alone in their fight against the Taliban.
The Taliban regime does not look at women’s situation as a national issue, and international human rights institutions do not take action beyond publishing statements and reports.
As part of our research at Rukhshana Media, we examined the devastating effects of shutting schools to girls. Our findings showed girls suffering severe psychological problems. Suicide, femicide, forced marriage and domestic violence have increased drastically. It is hard to understand the depths of this darkness, and international human rights organisations seem oblivious to these issues.
We live in a turbulent world. War, violence, natural disasters, fear and anxiety have become integral to our lives. From the earthquake in Turkey and the devastating floods in Pakistan to the war and violence in the Middle East and Ukraine, life has become bitter and unbearable for many. The number of displaced people in the world increases every day; hunger and economic crisis lurk even in the world’s largest economies.
However, women in Afghanistan are fighting a full-scale and unequal war. We need your support, just as the people of Ukraine want your support in their battle against the Russian invasion. Please do not leave Afghan women to suffer and fight alone.
Women in Afghanistan are fighting an unequal war. We need your support
In the meantime, a source told TOLOnews that Hamid Karzai was not permitted to meet a delegation of seven persons who came to Kabul from Iran.
Former president Hamid Karzai’s relatives confirmed there is a ban on Karzai’s travel abroad.
The relatives of Hamid Karzai confirmed to TOLOnews that three official invitations from other nations were sent to Karzai when he returned from the UK, but the Islamic Emirate has not yet let him travel abroad.
In the meantime, a source told TOLOnews that Hamid Karzai was not permitted to meet a delegation of seven persons who came to Kabul from Iran.
“Karzai had received official invitations from three countries when he returned to Afghanistan from England, but he was not allowed to travel. As far as internal visits are concerned, Afghans come daily and their documents are checked by the security forces, then they are allowed to enter,” said Shahzada Masoud, a relative of Karzai.
On Karzai’s X social media platform, posts on his meetings with residents and foreign officials were often published, but there was a period of eight days between Karzai’s meeting on Wednesday with the Japanese ambassador in Kabul, Takashi Okada, and previous posts of meetings.
“The imposition of restrictions on Hamid Karzai’s political activities indicates the restriction of political and civic activities in the Taliban government,” said Sayed Javad Sajadi, a political analyst.
“Afghanistan’s national interests demand that no restrictions should be imposed on Karzai and any other Afghan,” said Najibullah Jami, another political analyst.
The Islamic Emirate has not yet make any comments on this matter.
Former president Hamid Karzai remained in Afghanistan during the reestablishment of the Islamic Emirate, and on July 3, 2022, he left for the first time after fifteen months. Karzai, who is now in the country, has consistently stressed the need for the creation of a national discourse and the reopening of girls’ schools in Afghanistan.
Karzai’s Relatives Confirm Ban On His Travel Abroad
The United Nations says aid workers are still in a “race against time” to remove rubble and rebuild after the devastating earthquake struck eastern Afghanistan last month, killing at least 2,200 people and cutting off remote areas.
The 6.0-magnitude quake on Aug. 31 was shallow, destroying or causing extensive damage to low-rise buildings in the mountainous region. It hit late at night, and homes — mostly made of mud, wood, or rocks — collapsed instantly, becoming death traps.
Satellite data shows that about 40,500 truckloads of debris still needs to be cleared from affected areas in several provinces, the United Nations Development Program said Wednesday. Entire communities have been upended and families are sleeping in the open, it added.
The quake’s epicenter was in remote and rugged Kunar province, challenging rescue and relief efforts by the Taliban government and humanitarian groups. Authorities deployed helicopters or airdropped army commandos to evacuate survivors. Aid workers walked for hours on foot to reach isolated communities.
“This is a race against time,” said Devanand Ramiah, from the UNDP’s Crisis Bureau. “Debris removal and reconstruction operations must start safely and swiftly.”
People’s main demands were the reconstruction of houses and water supplies, according to a spokesman for a Taliban government committee tasked with helping survivors, Zia ur Rahman Speenghar.
People were getting assistance in cash, food, tents, beds, and other necessities, Speenghar said Thursday. Three new roads were under construction in the Dewagal Valley, and roads would be built to areas where there previously were none.
“Various countries and organizations have offered assistance in the construction of houses but that takes time. After the second round of assistance, work will begin on the third round, which is considering what kind of houses can be built here,” the spokesman said.
Afghanistan is facing a “perfect storm” of crises, including natural disasters like the recent earthquake, said Roza Otunbayeva, who leads the U.N. mission to the country.
Afghanistan Peace Campaign
