Mass Deportations ‘Could Bring Further Trouble’ to Region: ICG

Najeeb Rahman, a political analyst said that Pakistan has always sought to put pressure on Afghanistan through refugees.

International Crisis Group’s expert Ibraheem Bahiss, in a “Q and A” released by ICG stated that Pakistan’s policy to deport Afghan refugees “could bring further trouble to the region,” notwithstanding Islamabad’s efforts to justify itself on security grounds.

According to Bahiss, despite the immediate outcry from the UN and other international bodies, Islamabad seems intent on forcing all undocumented Afghans back to their home country.

“In Phase 1 of the plan, which took effect on 1 November, the state is targeting illegal Afghans, meaning those with no documentation, those with fake Pakistani papers and those who have overstayed their visas,” Bahiss said. “The government has not announced a clear timeline for the plan, but it has indicated that in Phase 2 it could go after Afghan Citizen Card holders. In Phase 3, it may send back even those holding Proof of Registration cards. The Proof of Registration cards for this cohort expired in June, and it is unclear if Afghanistan, Pakistan and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) will be able to reach an agreement on renewing the cardholders’ status.”

“They have faced an uncertain future as the weather is getting worse and there is no infrastructure,” said Asifa Stanikzai, a refugees’ rights activist.
Bahiss wrote that the more specific reason for this dramatic step seems to be the latest escalation of Pakistan’s worsening dispute with Afghanistan over the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP).

“The TTP has been increasingly aggressive in border areas over the past year, and Islamabad is seeking ways of pushing Kabul to curb its activity. In other words, the mass deportation is primarily driven by considerations – in particular Pakistan’s loss of patience with the Taliban – that have little to do with any purported danger posed by migrants and refugees themselves,” he said.

Najeeb Rahman, a political analyst said that Pakistan has always sought to put pressure on Afghanistan through refugees.

“(They) always misuse the political and social challenges of the people of Afghanistan and pressed for creating political and economic pressure for its interests,” he said. The Islamic Emirate’s spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, denied the presence of TTP fighters in Afghanistan, and urged Pakistan to not use refugees as a tool of pressure against Afghanistan.

“Using the issue of refugees as a tool to create pressure is not a proper act. Any country that has such intentions, it doesn’t serve them. The refugees and common people wherever they live should have rights and not face oppression” he said.

Pakistan started the deportations of undocumented Afghan refugees on November 1 this year. Many Afghans who were interviewed by TOLOnews complained of mistreatment and harassment by the Pakistani military.

Mass Deportations ‘Could Bring Further Trouble’ to Region: ICG
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Taliban minister raised refugee assets issue during Pakistan visit: Embassy

Al Jazeera

The Taliban’s acting commerce minister met Pakistan’s foreign minister in Islamabad this week, says an Afghan embassy statement, discussing trade and how the thousands of Afghan citizens Pakistan is expelling could take cash and other assets back to their homeland.

The meeting between Haji Nooruddin Azizi and Pakistan’s Jalil Abbas Jilani took place days after Pakistan said its move to expel more than a million undocumented Afghans was a response to the unwillingness of the Taliban-led administration to act against armed fighters using Afghanistan to carry out attacks in Pakistan.

Taliban officials say the attacks are an internal matter for Pakistan and have called on Islamabad to halt its deportation of Afghan citizens.

“Bilateral trade, especially the stranded goods of [Afghan] traders in Karachi port, smooth transfer of [Afghan] refugees’ properties to [Afghanistan] and related issues were discussed,” Afghanistan’s embassy in Islamabad said in the statement.

Afghan citizens returning to Afghanistan have said there are restrictions on the transfer of cash and property to Afghanistan from Pakistan, where many had built businesses and homes for decades.

Pakistan’s foreign office said Jilani conveyed the message that: “full potential for regional trade and connectivity can be harnessed with collective action against terrorism”.

Last month, Pakistan set a November 1 start date for the expulsion of all undocumented immigrants, including hundreds of thousands of Afghans. It cited security reasons, brushing off calls to reconsider from the United Nations, rights groups and Western embassies.

According to government figures, around 4.4 million Afghan refugees live in Pakistan, 1.7 million of them without valid documents.

Three more border crossings opened

On Monday, Pakistan opened three new border crossings to accelerate the repatriation in southwestern Balochistan province in addition to the main crossing in Chaman district, said Jan Achakzai, information minister for the provincial caretaker government.

The number of border crossings used to deport thousands of Afghans rose to five after the new facilities were opened. Currently, about 15,000 Afghans have been crossing the border every day from Pakistan. Before the crackdown, the figure was about 300.

Some 305,462 Afghan refugees have since left the country, authorities said. The majority, 209,550, crossed the border from the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkwa, said Fazal Rabbi, a senior official overseeing the deportation process.International aid agencies have documented chaotic and desperate scenes among Afghans who have returned from Pakistan. They have raised alarm at the dire conditions many Afghans who have recently returned are facing with few resources as the cold winter season begins and say many are staying in crowded shelters near the border operated by NGOs and Taliban authorities.

“Many Afghans in Pakistan are now facing police raids and demolition of their homes without due process. Detainees have been denied the right to a lawyer and communication with family members, leaving loved ones in the dark as to their whereabouts,” Amnesty International wrote on X, formerly Twitter, asking Pakistan to immediately halt deportations to prevent further escalation of this crisis.

Achakzai, the information minister, said police in Balochistan in recent days had arrested more than 1,500 Afghans who had no valid documents.

A prominent Pakistani human rights lawyer, Moniza Kakar, said in the southern port city of Karachi that police had launched midnight raids on homes and detained Afghan families, including women and children.

The head of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, Hina Jilani, said Pakistan lacks a comprehensive mechanism to handle refugees, asylum seekers and migrants without papers, despite hosting Afghans for 40 years.

Also on Monday, police said officers were investigating whether an Afghan man, Asif Khan, killed his 25-year-old Pakistani wife, Ameena Bibi, because she refused to go to Afghanistan with him.

The incident happened the previous day in the northwestern city of Nowshera, police official Yasir Khan said. He said the suspect left the country with his four children.

Pakistan’s foreign office said the Taliban acting commerce minister would also undertake a trilateral meeting with representatives from Pakistan and Uzbekistan on Tuesday.

The agenda for the trilateral meeting was not clear, but the three countries have been working on plans for trade transit and railway connections between South and Central Asia that would cross through Afghanistan.

SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES
Taliban minister raised refugee assets issue during Pakistan visit: Embassy
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Pakistan Extends Stay of 1.4 Million Registered Afghan Refugees


FILE — An Afghan refugee girl stands in a camp near the Torkham Pakistan-Afghanistan border in Torkham, Afghanistan, Nov. 4, 2023.
FILE — An Afghan refugee girl stands in a camp near the Torkham Pakistan-Afghanistan border in Torkham, Afghanistan, Nov. 4, 2023.
Pakistan announced Friday that it had extended, after a delay of four months, the legal residence status of about 1.4 million Afghan refugees until year-end, though it again rejected calls to halt deportations of all undocumented Afghans and other foreign nationals.

The announcement comes as a relief to the refugee community amid a nationwide crackdown on foreigners illegally residing in Pakistan, including an officially estimated 1.7 million Afghans.

“[The] government of Pakistan is pleased to extend the validity of the Proof of Registration, or PoR, cards issued to the registered Afghan refugees … till [31st] December 2023,” according to an official announcement seen by VOA.

U.N. glad for reprieve

A spokesperson of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Pakistan welcomed the decision, noting it was due in early July. He told VOA the delay had exposed refugee families to harassment and abuse, particularly after the crackdown was unleashed.

The registered refugees mainly comprise families that fled decades of conflict and persecution, starting with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the late 1970s. Pakistan would lately renew their PoR cards every six months but did not do so when they expired on June 30 this year, nor did it explain the reasons for the delay in its Friday statement.

In early October, Islamabad abruptly gave all foreigners without legal documents one month to voluntarily return to their countries of origin, saying those who remained beyond the November 1 deadline would be arrested and deported for violating local immigration laws.

On Wednesday, Pakistani caretaker Prime Minister Anwaar-ul-Haq Kakar said more than 250,000 Afghan individuals had voluntarily returned home since his administration announced the plan to force out migrants without papers.

The Taliban government in Afghanistan has decried the deportation plan and demanded Islamabad reconsider it. The U.N. and global rights groups also have criticized the forcible eviction of Afghans, citing a humanitarian crisis in the impoverished country and fearing the move could expose returnees to retribution and abuses by Taliban authorities.

On Friday, Amnesty International again urged Pakistan to immediately halt its continued detentions and deportations of Afghans.

Afghan refugees settle in a camp near the Torkham Pakistan-Afghanistan border, in Torkham, Afghanistan, Friday, Nov. 3, 2023. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi)
Afghan refugees settle in a camp near the Torkham Pakistan-Afghanistan border, in Torkham, Afghanistan, Nov. 3, 2023.

“No one should be subjected to mass forced deportations, and Pakistan would do well to remember its international legal obligations, including the principle of non-refoulement,” said Livia Saccardi, Amnesty International’s deputy regional director for campaigns for South Asia.

“If the Pakistani government doesn’t halt the deportations immediately, it will be denying thousands of at-risk Afghans, especially women and girls, access to safety, education and livelihood,” Saccardi said.

Sanctions include fine, prison

Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Mumtaz Zahra Baloch again dismissed the criticism Friday, reiterating the plan is not targeting Afghans only.

“This policy is reflective of Pakistan’s desire to implement its own laws, which include sanctions for individuals who are here illegally, and these sanctions include fines, prison sentence, and deportation,” Baloch told a weekly news conference in Islamabad.

Taliban fighters stand guard as Afghan refugees wait to register in a camp near the Torkham Pakistan-Afghanistan border in Torkham, Afghanistan, Nov. 4, 2023.
Taliban fighters stand guard as Afghan refugees wait to register in a camp near the Torkham Pakistan-Afghanistan border in Torkham, Afghanistan, Nov. 4, 2023.

Pakistani officials also have cited a spike in terrorist attacks they say are being plotted by Taliban-allied militants out of Afghan sanctuaries for unleashing the crackdown.

But they have repeatedly clarified that registered Afghan refugees and more than 800,000 others documented by the Pakistani government in collaboration with the International Organization of Migration are not the subjects of the deportation.

Returnees would face challenges

Afghans facing eviction include more than 600,000 individuals who fled the Taliban’s takeover in Kabul two years ago. They either lack legal documents, or their visas have expired. These asylum-seekers are reluctant to go back, citing security concerns because of their association with the former American-backed Afghan government and the United States-led Western troops.

The U.S. has also moved to prevent the forced expulsion of about 25,000 Afghans who it says could be eligible for relocation or resettlement in the United States.

During a news conference on Wednesday, Kakar said individuals listed by the U.S. would not be forced out of the country.

The U.S. and allied troops, who stayed in Afghanistan for almost two decades, withdrew in August 2021 when the then-insurgent Taliban reclaimed power and imposed their interpretation of Islamic law to govern the impoverished South Asian nation, reeling from years of war and natural disasters.

Gallup, a U.S.-based research and polling organization, warned Friday that economic uncertainty awaits returnees in Afghanistan, where women’s rights continue to deteriorate as they vanish from the workforce and majorities struggle to afford food and shelter.

“As thousands of Afghans are forced to cross the border from Pakistan, they face an economy unable to accommodate them, where job prospects are bleak, household incomes are squeezed, and millions are unable to afford the basic necessities of food and shelter,” the organization said.

Pakistan Extends Stay of 1.4 Million Registered Afghan Refugees
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Pakistan opens new border crossings to expedite Afghans’ repatriation

By

QUETTA, Pakistan, Nov 13 (Reuters) – Pakistan on Monday opened three new border crossings to accelerate the repatriation of undocumented Afghan nationals who have been ordered to leave the country or face expulsion, officials said.

Many Afghans have opted to go home voluntarily to avoid deportation under a government push for undocumented migrants to be expelled. Pakistan’s move affects more than 1 million Afghans, many of whom Islamabad says have been involved in militant attacks and crime, a claim Kabul rejects.

The new crossings were set up at the Afghan border in southwestern Balochistan province in addition to the main crossing in Chaman district, said Jan Achakzai, information minister for the provincial caretaker government.

The main crossing had been overwhelmed with Afghan refugees seeking to return home voluntarily, he said.

More than 280,000 Afghan nationals have left Pakistan since the new policy was announced in early October, according to the United Nations High Commissioner For Refugees (UNHCR).

Islamabad has begun round-up operations across the country after the deadline for voluntary departure expired on Nov. 1.

Pakistan has so far rejected calls from the United Nations, rights groups and Western embassies to reconsider its expulsion plan or to identify and protect Afghans who risk persecution at home.

Kabul has also asked Islamabad to give Afghan nationals ample time to leave.

The expulsion drive has driven relations between the neighbours to a new low, with Islamabad reiterating its claim that Islamist militants use Afghan soil to plan and carry out attacks in Pakistan. Kabul says Pakistan’s security is a domestic problem.

The mass migration has also raised fears of a humanitarian crisis as Kabul grapples with hundreds of thousands of people arriving and staying in makeshift tent villages on its side of the border at the onset of winter.

Writing by Asif Shahzad; Editing by Hugh Lawson

Pakistan opens new border crossings to expedite Afghans’ repatriation
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IRC’s Dent: Afghanistan Cannot Afford to Absorb Refugees

Abdul Latif Nazari, deputy minister of the economy, said that the Islamic Emirate is trying to reduce poverty and hunger in the country.

Nancy Dent, the vice president of Asia at the International Rescue Committee, said that Afghanistan is still facing an economic crisis and is unable to absorb thousands of returned refugee families.

In an interview with the Reuters news agency, the vice-president of the Asia department of IRC added that this situation is likely to worsen for the whole of Afghanistan.

“The country cannot afford to absorb thousands of families arriving and it is likely that this is going to stretch the economy even further. So, the situation for Afghanistan … is likely to deteriorate,” said Nancy Dent,  the vice president of Asia at the IRC.

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Economy said the imposition of sanctions and restrictions on the country are the root cause of Afghanistan’s economic crisis.

Abdul Latif Nazari, deputy minister of the economy, said that the Islamic Emirate is trying to reduce poverty and hunger in the country.

“The reason for economic problems in the country is the imposition of unfair sanctions by the world, but the Islamic Emirate is trying to reduce poverty and hunger so that the country becomes self-sufficient,” Nazari said.

On the other hand, a number of poor people say that their daily income is less than 100 afghanis and therefore they need more humanitarian aid.

“I leave home in the morning and work until dinner, but I earn from fifty to a hundred afghanis, which does not cover the household expenses,” said Samad Khan, a Kabul resident.

“There are seven people in my family and I am the only caretaker of the house who does not earn fifty Afghanis a day. So, I am asking the world to help us,” said Faiz Mohammad, another Kabul resident.

Earlier, the World Food Program said that 15 million people in Afghanistan are facing food insecurity, and due to lack of funds, this organization is forced to help 3 million people.

IRC’s Dent: Afghanistan Cannot Afford to Absorb Refugees
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Guterres Offers Assessment of Afghanistan to UNSC

Guterres stressed the need to pursue intra-Afghan dialogue to achieve more inclusive governance.

The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, in an assessment of the situation of Afghanistan to the UN Security Council, recommended a roadmap for reintegration of the country into the international system.

On 16 March 2023, the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2679 requesting the Secretary-General to provide the Security Council an independent assessment on Afghanistan, no later than 17 November 2023.

In the assessment seen by TOLOnews, Guterres stated that the urgent needs of the Afghans require a general shift away from politically driven aid approaches towards increased and more sustainable assistance, “especially in key sectors such as food security, livelihoods and health.”

Guterres stressed that the mechanisms to support engagement should be created and a UN Special Envoy should be appointed to ensure sufficient and dedicated resources to facilitate engagement among international and Afghan stakeholders, spearhead coordination and connect with the proposed and existing platforms.

After the Islamic Emirate came to power in August 2021, Afghanistan plunged into a dire political, economic and humanitarian crisis. The Islamic Emirate, the current ruling party in Afghanistan, has not yet been recognized by any country as it failed to fulfill its commitment at international levels, the assessment said.

The document also emphasized adherence to principles of non-discrimination, ensuring respect for women’s rights and their full participation as well as the respect for fundamental rights and freedoms of all Afghans.

The assessment also highlighted priority areas of building confidence between international and Afghan stakeholders, and among Afghans themselves as:

–          Expanding international assistance that contributes to the basic needs of the Afghan people.

–          Establishing economic dialogue and reforms to begin to resolve the many barriers to economic recovery.

–          Enable partial restoration of regular transit, trade, and other means of connectivity between Afghans and the world.

–          Encouraging and assisting activities that help Afghans realise their political, economic, cultural and social rights.

Referring to the international concerns about the use of Afghan soil as threats to other countries, planning and financing of terrorist acts, and the production, sale and trafficking of illegal narcotics; the UN Secretary-General suggested ‘effectively’ requiring coordination and cooperation between the de facto Afghan officials and the international stakeholders on a “bilateral and multilateral basis.”

The assessment also stressed supporting bilateral and multilateral security cooperation; cooperating with international counter-narcotics efforts; strengthening international borders, including effective border controls; expanding international cooperation and assistance in areas that advance regional and global priorities; reviewing and updating relevant provisions of the UN 1988 Sanctions list and gradually resuming diplomatic engagement inside Afghanistan.

The document recommends that the international community and Afghan stakeholders begin a more coherent political engagement process, arguing that more integrated and coherent international engagement should be pursued through a performance-based roadmap.

Referring to the Afghan de facto authorities who insist on recognition as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, he said: “Doing so (offering recognition) comes with acceptance of their obligations and commitments in international conventions, and good faith measures to comply with these through policy, legislation and in practice.”

Wahid Taqat, political analyst, told TOLOnews: “The UN is committed to the world to defend the sovereignty of our country. Defend the people of Afghanistan and rescue them from hunger.”

Moen Gul Samkani, political analyst, said that the UN can consult with the Islamic Emirate and other countries to fulfill the principles of the Doha agreement.

The document underscored the impact of the restrictions imposed by the interim Afghan government, saying that it is important to emphasize the commitments and obligations of the State of Afghanistan as a “signatory to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and as a party to the CEDAW, ICCPR, ICESCR. Obligations under the CEDAW, ICCPR, ICESCR, and other instruments include ensuring that women and girls enjoy equal rights with men to education at all levels, employment and occupation, and to participate in government policy-making and other forms of public life.”

Progress would be indicated by measurable steps to implement fulfilling Afghanistan’s treaty obligations and other commitments under international law, the document cited, adding that “taking meaningful steps to improve Afghanistan’s compliance with its treaty obligations, notably with regard to equal treatment and access; reinforcing and establishing inclusive forms of governance that are accessible and serve all sections of the population, across the country.”

“If the Islamic Emirate doesn’t pay attention to the rights of the people of Afghanistan, particularly the women, we know that it has an impact on the national and international level. It would be better to pay attention to the rights of people of Afghanistan, especially women,” said Tafseer Siahposh, a women’s rights activist.

Guterres stressed the need to pursue intra-Afghan dialogue to achieve more inclusive governance.

“A national political dialogue that reflects the views and participation of all Afghans should lead to the establishment of a predictable rule of law-based governance and an inclusive constitutional order that enshrines the rights of citizens in law and creates a predictable legal landscape,” the document said.

Measurable progress on upholding the obligations of the “State of Afghanistan” and on inclusive governance and intra-Afghan dialogue will pave the way toward the end state of full normalization and integration of Afghanistan within the international system, the document stated.

But the Islamic Emirate’s spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid, said that the cabinet of the Islamic Emirate is inclusive.

“The cabinet of the Islamic Emirate is comprised of all tribes. This cabinet includes Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek, Turkmen, Hazara, Baloch and Nuristani. We have different tribes in our cabinet,” he said.

According to the document, several recommendations are proposed for “an Afghanistan at peace with itself and its neighbors, fully reintegrated into the international community,” including:
–    A series of proposed measures that can be taken immediately and aimed at addressing the basic needs of the Afghan people and strengthening trust through more structured engagement.
–    A call for international attention to and cooperation on issues that impact regional and global security and stability.
–    A proposed roadmap for political engagement designed to reintegrate Afghanistan fully into the international community, in line with the State of Afghanistan’s international commitments and obligations, and with a degree of domestic input and inclusivity conducive to future peace and stability.
–    A set of mechanisms and formats to ensure the coordination and implementation of all the above.

Guterres Offers Assessment of Afghanistan to UNSC
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Nearly 400,000 Afghan Refugees Expelled from Pakistan in Past 2 Months

The Afghan nationals who are detained in Pakistan voiced concerns about their situation, saying that they are struggling with severe challenges.

The consulate of the Islamic Emirate in Karachi, Pakistan, Abdul Jabar Takhari, said that the detention of Afghan refugees in Pakistan is still happening at a high rate and that nearly 400,000 refugees have returned home in the past two months.

He said that nearly 1,000 Afghan refugees are currently in detention.

“Since Pakistan started the deportation of the Afghan refugees in October, nearly 400,000 Afghan refugees have returned to the country. In addition to that, we have talked with the Pakistani officials about the release of the Afghan refugees being detained in Pakistan,” Takhari said.

The Afghan nationals who are detained in Pakistan voiced concerns about their situation, saying that they are struggling with severe challenges.

“It has been four months since I was detained here in Pakistan. I brought my father for treatment to the doctor, my father is now in the hospital, but I am in the prison,” said Hamidullah, an Afghan refugee.

“I have been in prison in Pakistan for the past two months and I am in prison without committing any crime,” said Abdullah, an Afghan refugee.

The head of the Afghan refugees’ council, Mir Ahmad Raufi, said that the Pakistani police have been conducting crackdowns to arrest the undocumented Afghan nationals.

“The Afghan refugees are facing pressure from the Pakistan police and there is no difference between legal and illegal refugees—both are being detained,” he said.

The Islamic Emirate has erected a camp for the deportees who return to Afghanistan through Torkham crossing.

Nearly 400,000 Afghan Refugees Expelled from Pakistan in Past 2 Months
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The Take: Forced to leave Pakistan, where can Afghan refugees go?

Al Jazeera

The expulsion of undocumented Afghans in Pakistan is underscoring tensions with Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

Four million Afghans seeking refuge in Pakistan have been caught up in a government crackdown on immigration. What choices are left for those being forced to leave?

In this episode: 

Abid Hussain (@abidhussayn), Al Jazeera Digital correspondent

Episode credits:

This episode was produced by Amy Walters, Sonia Bhagat and our host Malika Bilal. David Enders fact-checked this episode.

Our sound designer is Alex Roldan. Our lead of audience development and engagement is Aya Elmileik and Adam Abou-Gad is our engagement producer.

Alexandra Locke is The Take’s executive producer, and Ney Alvarez is Al Jazeera’s head of audio.

The Take: Forced to leave Pakistan, where can Afghan refugees go?
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An Old Master’s Song for the Nation That Broke His Heart

Reporting from Beverwijk, in the Netherlands

The New York Times

For his fellow exiles, Sadiq Fitrat Nashenas, an 88-year-old star from a golden era, evokes the Afghanistan they left behind, and one that could have been.

For four nights before the concert, the old master had trouble sleeping. In his dreams, he was haunted by defeat after defeat — a failed exam, a knockout in the boxing ring. During the day, an upset stomach reduced his diet to gentle soup.

But now, Sadiq Fitrat Nashenas, 88, one of the last living stars of a golden era for Afghan music, gingerly made his way through the crowd, after nearly 20 years away from the public stage. He had the thick spectacles of a long-retired professor, the neatly trimmed mustache and elegant outfit of a gentleman of a bygone era, and the shyness of an artist still uncomfortable with adulation after a lifetime of performance.

The audience stood in applause. Mr. Nashenas gently raised his hands and blew kiss after kiss, until he was helped by the elbow onto the stage and seated behind the harmonium he would play as he sang for the next three hours.

“Life is a stage of artistry,” he intoned, opening the night with Farsi verse. His booming voice put to rest rumors that age had brought a tremble to it. “Everyone comes, recites their song, and departs. But the stage always remains.”

Mr. Nashenas’s own life and artistry speak to the Afghanistan he left behind,and one that could have been.

There is a timelessness, a sense of continuity, to his music: poems penned half a millennium ago, set to rhythmic arrangements hundreds of years old, presented to a contemporary audience in several languages of West and South Asia. The music he developed, untouched by the region’s modern political and religious fractures, blended the great Farsi poetic tradition of Iran, the folk and oral heritage of Afghanistan and the vastness of India’s classical music.

He gave his concert last month in the Netherlands, far from an Afghanistan where, since the return of Taliban rule, public music is once again banned, musical instruments are smashed by state agents and musicians are hounded.

The venue was a “party center” tucked between auto dealerships in Beverwijk, a small town just outside Amsterdam. The place had the feel of a Kabul wedding hall: bright chandeliers; waist-high plastic flowers that had to be removed from the tables so you could see Mr. Nashenas and the band. Flasks of green tea and bowls of sugarcoated almonds made their way from a tea bar in a corner.

The audience of about 300 was made up of exiles. Old exiles from the Soviet invasion of 40 years ago. Fresh exiles from the Taliban’s takeover two years ago, the violent end to a brief dance with democracy. And exiles from wars and tragedies in between. For all, Mr. Nashenas’s music sent them back, in place and time.

Mr. Nashenas himself left Afghanistan in 1991, in the final days of its Communist government. He and his family were packed into a pickup truck, navigating through insurgent checkpoints, bound for Pakistan and, eventually, London.

He would never return. His heartbreak and anger were simply too deep.

But in his grief, music remained a refuge. He recorded and performed for large audiences in the United States, Europe and Australia. Eventually, advancing age and messy diaspora politics turned him away from bigger concerts, but he kept playing for himself and a small circle of friends. He decided to perform last month mostly to see if he still had it in him.

“I was just trying to hold on to my music, because music takes me to God, to the heavens,” he said. “Life without music is a mistake.”

He was born Mohammed Sadiq Habibi in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar in 1935 — a time, he says, when Kandahar “had one doctor and two homeopaths.” The conservative Habibi family was well known. Seven generations of its men before him had trained as Islamic scholars, known as Mawlawis.

But his father, Mawlawi Mohammed Rafiq Habibi, was a conflicted man.

Although he had studied as a religious scholar, he worked as a bank clerk and was for years the Afghan state bank’s representative in Karachi, which was then a port city in undivided India. He dressed in suits and ties and was open to debating theological questions with his son about the existence of God.

It was his mother, though, who opened new worlds for him.

Some of his earliest memories involve listening to his mother, Bibi Hazrata, and other women of the family in Arghandab, a district of pomegranates and vineyards, as they sang folk songs at weddings and family gatherings. His mother was also his early interpreter of poetic verse. She did not have formal schooling, but classical poetry in those times was a pillar of education in the mosque and at home.

“My mother had a lot of interest in poetry, and knew the meanings well,” he said.

One of the first recordings he made, years later, for Radio Afghanistan was of a Pashto folk song he had heard as a child, which his mother helped him understand. On a bus ride from Kandahar to Karachi, the conductor softly sang the song.

I am going to visit my beloved today

May God shorten these earthly ropes.

The boy tugged at his mother and asked what “earthly ropes” meant. She described God as a puppet master of sorts, sitting in the heavens.

“All these distances in the world — the threads, the ropes are in God’s hand,” she told him. “Whenever he wants to connect the lover with the beloved, brother with brother, husband with wife, he pulls the strings and the distances disappear.”

As he searched for a voice and an identity as a youth, he wrote essays and poems. “No one noticed,” he said.

Until one day when, at 15, he was singing a song as he bathed. His mother heard him and asked him to sing it again.

“She liked it, and tears started rolling down her face,” he said.

“It was at that moment that I realized: I have found my path.”

Much of his early professional musical life was a secret. He finished his university degree, found a desk job at Radio Afghanistan and used that to get behind the microphone and record songs. For four years, even as his songs became famous, no one in the family knew the voice on the radio was his.

He had taken a stage name: Nashenas, which loosely translates as “unknown,” and which he would adopt as his surname.

But one day at the bank, a clerk who had learned the true identity of the new radio star congratulated Mr. Nashenas’s father on his son’s success. His father confronted him, not happy that something so big had been kept from him for so long.

“I said, ‘You are prejudiced against music; I was afraid of that,’” Mr. Nashenas said he replied.

His father denied that, but told his son he was worried that he could face humiliation in a society where “music and dance will take another 200 years before it is seen in the fine arts.”

“He was a man of his times, and I was of mine,” Mr. Nashenas said.

Neither of his parents lived to see the peak of his fame. But Mr. Nashenas knew that his father had come around to his choice, in his own quiet and proud way.

On his deathbed, his father kept a radio next to him at low volume. He said he was listening for the news. But Mr. Nashenas’s mother later told him that his father had been keeping an ear out for his songs.

The same contradictions that marked his father’s life went even deeper in Mr. Nashenas’s own: a secular man in a profoundly religious family; a rationalist in a society trapped in tribal ways. Mr. Nashenas’s formative education took place in the Soviet Union. At heart, he became a liberal.

After earning a doctorate in literature in Moscow, he worked as a civil servant and a diplomat. When Afghanistan began to disintegrate in the late 1980s and early 1990s, he had just returned from a diplomatic posting in Moscow. Kabul, where a Soviet-backed government was in power, was encircled by the mujahedeen, the religious guerrillas supported by the Americans. The city was choked, its residents fleeing to escape the constant barrage of insurgent missiles and the long lines at bakeries running out of bread.

Mr. Nashenas and his family left everything behind, including his savings in the bank and the money from the sale of their house. Just outside the Kabul city gates, a guerrilla cornered the famous musician, who had grown out his beard and put on dirty clothes as a disguise.

“Where are you coming from?”

“Kabul.”

“What do you do there?”

“I am retired.”

“What did you do before your retirement?”

When Mr. Nashenas lost patience and asked the young man to leave him alone, the fighter lifted his gun to his chest. Finger on the trigger, the guerrilla accused him of being a “communist and an infidel.” He could easily kill him right there and no one would care, the fighter told him.

Mr. Nashenas made it out of Afghanistan, settling in London with his family of five. He would not return, even during the 20-year American presence, a time when many believed in the promise of a new beginning. It was as if he could see that what was being built would not last.

“I am aggrieved by them,” he told an interviewer earlier this year. “The country owes me my 40 years’ pension; they didn’t even give me that.”

If he went back to Kabul now, he would not recognize it — not its streets, and perhaps not its people or their ways. As he withdrew into his corner of seclusion in London, his homeland was forever changed by three decades of bloody turmoil.

But he will sing for Afghanistan as long as he has music in him.

“It’s a connection of blood,” he said.

A Full Heart

Bano Bahar, a middle-aged artist with dirty-blond hair and a big infectious laugh, took her seat at the table right at the foot of the stage. She said that while she had listened to Mr. Nashenas’s music for decades, this was the first time she was getting to see him perform live.

Ms. Bahar kept scanning the corners of the hall, asking if the old master was there yet. She was a woman on a mission: She wanted to perform a duet with Mr. Nashenas. His manager said absolutely not.

“I will do whatever it takes to make it happen,” the woman on a mission said. “I will kick and scream like a child.”

Next to her at the table was an old leftist journalist, who had also been in exile for decades. He wore a beret, a goatee and a mischievous smile. His claim to fame: Three presidents had tried to kill him, he said, and he had been poisoned six times. (Another claim to fame: He was part of a youth group that pinned a picture of a communist president to the butt of a dog and unleashed it into the city. “It took a whole military squad to chase the dog,” he laughed.)

The crowd stood as Mr. Nashenas appeared at the top of the stairs, some coming forward to kiss his hands in reverence.

He took his seat behind the harmonium that had been part of his life for 70 years. His hands trembled as he tried to arrange his handwritten notes and lyrics. He was visibly nervous — and irritated by the chaos as well-wishers and prominent exiles welcomed him in speeches.

“Music will not die in Afghanistan, poetry will not die in Afghanistan,” said Ahmad Shah Farhood, a historian. “Despite all the oppressive regimes, music will live on.”

Finally, Mr. Nashenas began the performance, accompanied by a four-man band of exiles from all over Europe. There had been no rehearsals.

At the end of the first song, Mr. Nashenas gently threw his hands up in acknowledgment of the applause.

“Don’t forget that I am 88 years old — do not expect the voice of a 25-year-old,” he joked.

Ms. Bahar was so consumed, so in awe, that she forgot about her demand for a duet. With one hand, she held her phone and broadcast the concert on Facebook. With the other, she tapped the table to the beat. In between, she wiped the tears that mixed with her mascara.

Sometimes, the old master got stuck on a verse, forgetting a line in one of his 600 songs. As he searched through his papers, his apprentice, Arash Forogh, who was playing backup harmonium, picked up the song’s thread and completed the verse. Mr. Nashenas smiled in appreciation.

On two occasions when he couldn’t remember the verse, he threw it to the audience: “Does anyone remember the last verse?”

Of course they did.

Sometimes, his hands let go of the harmonium and his fingers danced to the tabla’s beat, to the rhythm of the words he sang. An old master in a little trance. Other times, he cupped the microphone tightly in both hands — an aged rock star lost in the crescendo.

At least once, when the jitters were washed away by the audience’s love, he looked up to the sky. Later, he described it as the silent gratitude of a secular man to the powers that might be out there, “but that our mind cannot comprehend.”

Far away from the region that shaped him, far away from the homeland lost to him so long ago, in a wedding hall tucked between car dealerships, his heart was full.

To loud applause, the old master said: “I will never forget this night in my life.”

Mujib Mashal is the South Asia bureau chief for The Times, helping to lead coverage of India and the diverse region around it, including Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh and Bhutan. More about Mujib Mashal

An Old Master’s Song for the Nation That Broke His Heart
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Girls Reiterate Call to Reopen Schools

They say that education is one of their fundamental rights and the Islamic Emirate should open the gates of schools to girls as soon as possible.

Coinciding with World Science Day, girls who are students above the sixth grade want to reopen schools once again.

They say that education is one of their fundamental rights and the Islamic Emirate should open the gates of schools to girls as soon as possible.

“Eight hundred days is not a small number. A day for a girl to study is like a year, but it’s been 800 days since you deprived Afghan girls of education,” said Asma, a student.

Among the girls deprived of education, Shabnam, 18, is a young girl who dreams of becoming a doctor.

“Today is the World’s Science Day, and the largest part of the Afghan society, which are women, are deprived of their most basic right. My request to the caretaker government is to open the gates of schools to all Afghan girls as soon as possible,”  Shabnam, a student, told TOLOnews.

On November 10th, World Science Day for Peace and Development is celebrated every year in different countries of the world.

A number of university teachers consider Afghanistan to be one of the countries where the education process has always been accompanied by challenges.

They say that the Islamic Emirate should put opening the gates of schools and universities on their agenda.

“Keeping a large part of the society, i.e. women and girls, from education is actually avoiding a religious order on the one hand and on the other hand, depriving this large and influential section of society from the blessing of literacy, which is actually a divine order,” said Hekmatullah Mirzada, a university scholar.

Meanwhile, Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesman of the Islamic Emirate, says that the caretaker government is trying to make Afghanistan progress in various sciences.

“We want Afghanistan to be equal in sciences and reach the same stages that the countries of the world have reached, we are trying to progress in various sciences,” Zabihullah Mujahid said.

Earlier, Roza Otunbayeva, the head of UNAMA, at the Women in Islam conference in Jeddah, criticized what she called the violation of the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan.

Girls Reiterate Call to Reopen Schools
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