Addressing the same gathering, the country’s Interior Minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, called on the people to support the Islamic Emirate.
The acting Minister of Foreign Affairs, Amir Khan Muttaqi, said that weakening the Afghan government will harm everyone and that the international community has assured the Islamic Emirate that they don’t support the armed resistance against the interim government.
Speaking at a large gathering of religious clerics and influential figures of the country, Muttaqi said that Afghan soil is not a threat to any country and there is a need for the international community have a moderate policy towards the Islamic Emirate.
“There is no opposition all over Afghanistan. The whole world assured us that they don’t support the armed opponents. This opportunity should be used considering the policy of the Islamic Emirate and its moderate policy which doesn’t want Afghanistan to become a battlefield for negative powers,” he said.
Addressing the same gathering, the country’s Interior Minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, called on the people to support the Islamic Emirate.
“The reconstruction needs patience and major engagement. Bullying has ended and a pure independence has been ensured,” he said.
The participants issued a resolution of 12 principles, in which they also stressed the facilitation of religious and modern education based on Sharia and Afghan culture.
The statement also stresses the need for engagement of the Islamic Emirate with the international community within a Sharia and Islamic framework. They also called for releasing Afghanistan’s assets abroad and lifting sanctions as well as economic cooperation by the international community.
“The Ulema and influential figures wants the Islamic Emirate to take necessary actions for engagement with the world while considering Islamic Sharia, independence, reputation of Afghanistan, national reconciliation and based on the current conditions,” said Sultan Ahmad Adel, head of the Ulema council at 22nd PD in Kabul.
“We are opposing modern education. We need medical, science, physics, chemistry, and biology,” said Deen Mohammad, head of the Kabul Ulema.
The gathering of the religious clerics and influential figures comes as the international community has repeatedly called for national consensus and national dialogue in Afghanistan in a bid to solve the ongoing challenges of the country.
Richard Trenchard, FAO Representative in Afghanistan, said that the project will begin mid next year.
The Japanese Ambassador in Kabul, Takashi Okada, called on the Afghan “de facto” authorities to strengthen legitimacy within the country to expand international cooperation.
Speaking at a signing ceremony for “Enhancing Agriculture Production through Community-Led Irrigation between the Embassy of Japan and FAO”, Okada said:
“For the expansion of international cooperation, the de facto authorities first needs to strengthen… legitimacy within the country by prioritizing people’s needs. When it happens, its external relations will be improved.”
During the ceremony, a water project worth $9.5 million in eastern Kunar province was kicked off. The project was signed between the Food and Agriculture Organization of the UN and Japan.
Okada said that approximately 12,000 people will benefit from the project.
“With this agreement, the Japanese government will provide approximately $9.5 million to FAO for the rehabilitation and expansion of Tetsu Nakamura’s legacy project,” he said.
Richard Trenchard, FAO Representative in Afghanistan, said that the project will begin mid next year.
“The construction will begin next year. In the middle of next year. Involving local Afghan companies and the project will be completed by 2027,” he said.
Japanese ambassador once again reiterated his country’s support to the people of Afghanistan.
Japanese Envoy Urges Afghan Interim Govt to Strengthen Internal Legitimacy
Earlier, a number of US House of Representatives members voiced their opposition to the American forces’ departure from Afghanistan.
A member of the US House of Representatives described the US withdrawal from Afghanistan as a mistake on the eve of the two-year anniversary of the departure of the last American soldier from Afghanistan.
In an interview with FOX News, Mike Garcia, a member of the US House of Representatives representing California’s 27th Congressional District, claimed that hundreds of “Afghan partners” are currently being killed in Afghanistan.
“We all know the way we withdrew was the wrong way, and that’s why we lost so many lives and left so many folks behind. And now there’s literally hundreds and thousands of Afghan partners being killed on a daily basis under this current Afghan Taliban regime,” he said.
Meanwhile, the deputy spokesman of the Islamic Emirate Bilal Karimi, denied these claims, saying that the Islamic Emirate is committed to general amnesty in the country.
“We strongly reject this. The Islamic Emirate has announced a general amnesty and tens of thousands of former administration forces in Afghanistan are currently living in peace and safety,” Karimi noted.
“Mysterious murders in Afghanistan have recently increased, so these remarks apply to the current circumstances in Afghanistan where such crimes occur,” said military expert Sadiq Shinwari.
Earlier, a number of US House of Representatives members voiced their opposition to the American forces’ departure from Afghanistan.
US Congressman Says Withdrawal Occurred in ‘Wrong Way’
Speaking at a press conference, Raisi note that his country has good relations with all its neighbors and is bound by the Helmand River Water Treaty.
Amid tensions between Kabul and Tehran over the Helmand River’s water supply, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said Iranian specialists are looking into the water supply of Sistan and Baluchistan from Afghanistan.
Speaking at a press conference, Raisi note that his country has good relations with all its neighbors and is bound by the Helmand River Water Treaty.
“These negotiations resulted in the dispatch of our expert group, and they (the Islamic Emirate) accepted the expert group to check and see whether the water is sufficient for us to meet the water needs in Sistan and Baluchistan, which is being followed up and investigated,” Raisi added.
In the meantime, Ali Salajegheh, the Vice President of Iran and the head of Iran’s Department of Environment, said in a press conference that the authorities of the Islamic Emirate agreed to pay the country’s water rights from the Helmand River if the conditions in terms of rainfall are suitable, and, according to Salajegheh, Afghanistan also does not have favorable water conditions.
However, the Islamic Emirate said that climate change is to blame for the nation’s current drought and asserted that it is equally committed to the terms of the 1973 pact between the two nations.
“Climatic changes and continuous droughts that have occurred have caused water shortage problems. The Islamic Emirate provides water rights according to the 1973 treaty,” said Bilal Karimi, deputy spokesman of the Islamic Emirate.
“If Iran always blames Afghanistan, I don’t think that would be Afghanistan’s fault because we do not consider it necessary to send a lot of water to another country until the country solves its need for water,” Shaker Yaqoubi, an economist said.
Previously a delegation of Iranian experts traveled to Afghanistan and visited the water meter of Dehravud.
According to the 1973 treaty, Afghanistan is committed to sharing water from the Helmand River with Iran at the rate of 26 cubic meters of water per second, or 850 million cubic meters per annum.
Iran President Says Islamic Emirate Allowing Experts to Check Water Levels
Meanwhile, a number of women’s rights activists are asking the UN to take action on human rights issues, especially to support women’s rights in Afghanistan.
Heather Barr, director of the Women’s Rights Division at Human Rights Watch, said that the Human Rights Council meeting will be held in Geneva in September of this year.
Heather Barr told TOLOnews that various issues will be discussed at the meeting, including the extension of the mission of the UN Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan.
“The council will convene again in September and there are a couple of things on their agenda that are extremely important for Afghanistan. One is that they will be deciding about whether to renew the mandate of the special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Afghanistan. Another issue is that, in their joint report, the special rapporteur and the working group recommended that states should mandate or report on the issue of gender apartheid and how that might apply in Afghanistan. So, it will be interesting to see whether the human rights council takes up that recommendation or not. And then, a third issue is that Human Rights Watch and other human rights organizations have been pushing hard to say that the human rights councils should also set up a new separate UN mandated mechanism to collect evidence and preserve evidence of human rights violations being committed in Afghanistan,” she said.
Meanwhile, a number of women’s rights activists are asking the UN to take action on human rights issues, especially to support women’s rights in Afghanistan.
“Religion has given us human rights, so why are we far from it, why do we not have them, why are the programs that are implemented ineffective and not having a positive impact? The reason is that these programs are symbolic,” Mina, a women’s rights activist, said.
“The fact that the UN and the countries of the world hold the meeting regarding human rights is important for us. It should not be theoretical, but it should have practical measures too,” Alamtab Rasouli, a women’s rights activist said.
However, the Islamic Emirate argued that in international discussions regarding Afghanistan, more focus should be placed on the Islamic Emirate’s accomplishments.
“They should have good supervision regarding the progress of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and the fact that a 44-year war has come to an end and progress has been made in the economy and other fields,” said Bilal Karimi, deputy spokesman of the Islamic Emirate.
Several human rights organizations have voiced their concerns over the human rights situation in Afghanistan.
Heather Barr: UN Human Rights Meeting Planned for September
Meanwhile, some students asked the current government to reopen schools and universities for girls in the country.
White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said that that the US has been very clear about the education of girls in Afghanistan.
Addressing the press conference, Jean-Pierre said that Washington remains laser-focused on trying to support and assist the Afghan people without bolstering the Islamic Emirate.
“We have been very clear in laying out our concerns, such as girls’ education, with the Taliban. We have been consistent with that. We’ve been very clear of that. And so, we also remain laser-focused on trying to support and assist the Afghan people without bolstering the Taliban. And so, that’s something that we’re going to continue to do. That’s something that the President is going to continue to be clear about,” she said.
Meanwhile, some students asked the current government to reopen schools and universities for girls in the country.
“We ask the Islamic Emirate to open the schools. Women have the right to study and perform duties and build the future of their country,” said Husna Ahmadzai, a student.
“Even though I was in the 12th grade, I could not participate in the entrance exam and get into the university. Please open the schools for us,” said Naderia, a student.
The deputy spokesperson for the Islamic Emirate, Bilal Karimi, said that all Afghans’ rights are upheld within the confines of the Islamic law.
“Afghanistan’s internal issues are related to the Afghan people. Interference from outside cannot be justified,” Karimi noted.
The international community also views the right of women to work in Afghanistan and the ability of girls and women to receive an education as requirements for recognizing the Islamic Emirate.
White House: We Are ‘Very Clear’ on Support for Afghan Girls
Watchdogs slam Taliban’s ‘flagrant violation of the right to education and freedom of movement’ after Afghan women stopped from boarding a flight to Dubai to study on a scholarship.
Human rights groups have condemned the Taliban’s latest restrictions on Afghan women’s education and movement after it barred them from visiting one of Afghanistan’s most popular national parks and stopped them from leaving for the United Arab Emirates to study on academic scholarships.
Amnesty International said it denounced the Taliban’s latest action prohibiting female students from travelling to Dubai to start their university studies.
“This preposterous decision is a flagrant violation of the right to education and freedom of movement and demonstrates the continued gender persecution against women and girls in Afghanistan,” the rights group said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
“The Taliban de-facto authorities must immediately reverse their decision and allow these female students to travel and study.”
The head of a Dubai-based conglomerate said Taliban authorities had stopped about 100 women from travelling to the UAE, where he said he had sponsored their university educations.
Khalaf Ahmad al-Habtoor, founding chairman of Al Habtoor Group, said in a video posted on X that he had planned to sponsor the female students to attend university and a plane he had paid for had been due to fly them to the UAE on Wednesday.
“The Taliban government refused to allow the girls who were coming to study here – 100 girls sponsored by me – they refused them to board the plane, and already we have paid for the aircraft. We have organised everything for them here – accommodation, education, transportation, security,” he said in the video.
Al Habtoor included audio of one of the Afghan students who said she had been accompanied by a male chaperone but airport authorities in Kabul had stopped them from boarding the flight.
Students bemoan lost opportunity
Laila said their scholarships were their “only hope to go abroad to continue our education”.
“This was an amazing opportunity for us, but like everything else, this opportunity was taken from us,” she told the Agence France-Presse news agency.
The 22-year-old was due to start a law degree in Dubai, having been forced to abandon her journalism studies under a Taliban government ban.
Laila said she and the other women made it to their departure gate but were turned away at the last moment by men in airport uniforms who said they had an order that those with student visas were not allowed to leave the country.
The Taliban administration has closed universities and high schools to female students in Afghanistan.
In a video posted on X, Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged the international community to “press the Taliban to end their violations of women’s rights”.
Women banned from entering national park
On Sunday, the Taliban government’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice closed the Band-e-Amir national park to women, saying female visitors were failing to cover up.
The park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site 175km (110 miles) west of Kabul, is renowned for its striking blue lakes surrounded by sweeping cliffs.
The park in Bamyan province is a popular spot for domestic tourism and is regularly swarmed with Afghans relaxing at the shore or paddling the waters in rented boats.
HRW Associate Women’s Rights Director Heather Barr told AFP the decision to ban women was “cruel in a very intentional way”.
“Not content with depriving girls and women of education, employment and free movement, the Taliban also want to take from them parks and sport and now even nature,” she said in a statement.
“Step-by-step, the walls are closing in on women as every home becomes a prison,” she said.
The minister for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, justified the ban, saying women were failing to wear hijabs properly.
“We must take action from today. We must prevent the non-observance of hijab,” he said during a visit to Bamyan.
Ministry spokesman Akef Muhajir told the AFP news agency that local religious leaders requested the temporary closure because women from outside the province were not observing the hijab dress code.
Other national parks in Afghanistan remain open to all, he said.
On Sunday, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, asked in a social media post: “Why [is] this restriction … necessary to comply with Sharia and Afghan culture?”
Women have been barred from visiting parks, fairs and gyms and must cover up in public since the Taliban returned to power two years ago.
They have also mostly been blocked from working for UN agencies or NGOs. Thousands have been sacked from government jobs or paid to stay at home.
SOURCE: NEWS AGENCIES
Rights groups condemn Taliban’s new curbs on women’s education, movement
The ICG said that as the use of sanctions has increased, so, too, has awareness of their collateral effects.
The International Crisis Group (ICG), said in a new report that sanctions have become an increasingly prominent tool of US statecraft, but urged Washington to align sanctions policy with peacemaking efforts.
The ICG said that as the use of sanctions has increased, so, too, has awareness of their collateral effects.
“While the US looks to sanctions to further its goals in numerous conflicts, sanctions also sometimes obstruct peacemaking – that is, activities in the service of violence prevention and conflict resolution,” it said. “The more Washington uses sanctions, the more far-reaching the downsides are and the more pressing it is to address them.”
To align sanction policy with peacemaking efforts, the ICG said, the US administration “could do so by setting clear objectives for sanctions programs, subjecting them to rigorous periodic review, expanding and making permanent carveouts for peace activities, and addressing private-sector concerns about investment in previously sanctioned jurisdictions.”
It said sanctions can also impede US efforts to encourage private-sector investment in post-conflict settings. Investors often lack the confidence to enter markets where sanctions exist, even when the US Treasury has issued licenses specifically authorising certain transactions or when sanctions have recently been lifted, in part or in full. In these situations, sanctions have a “chilling effect” on business activity or, in the words of one former US official, hang over a country “like a black cloud”.
According to the report, private firms often express confusion about the scope of permitted activity and may err on the side of caution by refusing to do business in these places altogether.
“Such have been the calculations of many companies that had been active in Afghanistan before the Taliban takeover, which pulled out of the country despite the general licenses published by the US permitting extensive private-sector transactions as part of efforts to stave off state collapse,” the report said.
The ICG cited that the effects can seem trivial (some diplomats working on Venezuela in 2019 and 2020 were told to avoid buying anything, even a cup of coffee, for sanctioned members of the Maduro government), but in other cases they can prove a hurdle to dialogue.
“For example, some US officials have expressed regret at the designation of Afghanistan’s Haqqani network as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), which they said made it harder for the US government as a whole to come around to the idea of dialogue with the group on ending the conflict in Afghanistan,” it said.
US Should Align Sanctions Policy with Peacemaking Efforts: ICG
First, her dreams of becoming a doctor were dashed by the Taliban’s ban on education. Then her family set up a forced marriage to her cousin, a heroin addict. Latifa* felt her future had been snatched away.
“I had two options: to marry an addict and live a life of misery or take my own life,” said the 18-year-old in a phone interview from her home in central Ghor province. “I chose the latter.”
It was not an isolated act of desperation. Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, there has been a disturbing surge in the number of women taking their own lives or attempting to do so, data collected from public hospitals and mental health clinics across a third of Afghanistan’s provinces shows.
Taliban authorities have not published data on suicides and have barred health workers from sharing up-to-date statistics in multiple provinces, medics say. Health workers agreed to privately share figures for the year from August 2021 to August 2022 to highlight an urgent public health crisis. The data suggests Afghanistan has become one of very few countries worldwide where more women than men die by suicide.
The figures are partial but give a snapshot across Afghanistan’s wide demographic and geographic range. They cover provinces variously dominated by all of Afghanistan’s major ethnic groups, provinces ranging from southern deserts to northern mountains, and largely rural areas and others around major cities.
UN officials and human rights activists have raised the alarm about the sharp increase in the number of women attempting to take their own lives. They have explicitly linked it to Taliban restrictions on every aspect of women’s existence, from a ban on education above elementary level and a prohibition on most work, to a bar on entering parks, bathhouses and other public spaces.
“Afghanistan is in the midst of a mental health crisis precipitated by a women’s rights crisis,” said Alison Davidian, the country representative for UN Women. “We are witnessing a moment where growing numbers of women and girls see death as preferable to living under the current circumstances.”
The Taliban declined repeated requests for comment on suicide rates or on the data collected for this investigation.
The figures from healthcare providers show that out of 11 provinces surveyed, in only one did men account for the majority of suicide deaths and attempts.
That province was Nimruz, the main jumping-off point for dangerous attempts to cross illegally into Iran, which are made largely by men. Those who fail in their attempt to get over the border sometimes take their own lives there.
Everywhere else, women and girls made up a majority of those who died from suicide or were treated after trying to kill themselves, with the youngest recorded victims in their early teens. Overall, females made up more than three-quarters of recorded suicide deaths and treated survivors.
A graveyard in Herat city.
Those bleak figures are likely to underestimate the depths of women’s desperation. Suicide is considered shameful and often covered up in Afghanistan. Some women who attempt suicide will not be taken for treatment and some who die may be buried without a record that they took their own lives.
Roya*, 31, was found dead in her house in the city of Herat in May 2022 after years in an abusive marriage. Her younger brother, Mohammad*, said his sister had often told their parents about her husband’s attacks but they urged her not to leave him.
“Every time, my parents would persuade her to keep her family together,” Mohammad said. “One morning, we were informed that Roya had [taken her own life]. We never thought it would get this far.”
The family told people she had died of an illness, because they consider suicide unIslamic and shameful.
Shaharzad Akbar, a former chair of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission – an organisation targeted by the Taliban insurgency and now operating in exile – said social stigma meant such secrecy was common.
“The rare instance when [relatives] willingly admit to suicide is when they don’t want any member of the family to be accused of murder,” said Akbar, who is now executive director of Rawadari, a new Afghan human rights organisation.
Lost hope
Afghanistan’s history of conflict and poverty had fuelled a mental health crisis long before August 2021. A survey published in the journal BMC Psychiatry two months before the Taliban takeover found nearly half the population suffered from psychological distress.
But the loss of freedom and hope, and an increase in forced and underage marriages and domestic abuse, has made women even more vulnerable over the last two years.
About 90% of mental health admissions at the provincial hospital in western Herat were women “breaking down under the weight of the new restrictions”, one medic there said.
Nine in 10 women in Afghanistan are subjected to some form of domestic violence, according to the UN. Efforts to tackle the issue under the last government, from legislation to shelters, were imperfect but offered women some hope. Those efforts have now been dismantled by the Taliban.
“The mechanism to respond to domestic violence is totally eradicated; women have no choice but to bear the violence or kill themselves,” said Akbar.
Inside the Herat hospital’s mental health ward.
Warnings about female suicides are only intensifying as the Taliban tighten controls on every aspect of women’s lives, most recently banning beauty salons.
When Latifa woke up in a hospital bed surrounded by family and doctors, she was told that her cousin had disappeared after learning of her suicide attempt. She worries that he might return and says if he does she will try to kill herself again.
“If he comes back and my family tries to force me [into marriage] again, I will … make sure I don’t survive,” she said.
Medics in Herat province, which recorded the highest numbers of female suicides and attempted suicides, described a system overwhelmed, withonly 25 mental health beds for a population of millions.
Herat has recorded high levels of gender violence and female suicide for many years. Even so, medical need has soared since the Taliban took power. “Patients do not get the hospitalisation time and counselling they need,” one health worker said. “Many times, we put two patients in one bed.”
In May, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, said he was “alarmed about widespread mental health issues and accounts of escalating suicides among women and girls”.
Some see suicide as the only remaining form of defiance possible in a country where authorities are seeking to remove women from public life entirely.
“They don’t have much room for expressing their protests and disagreements,” said Julie Billaud, an anthropology professor at the Geneva Graduate Institute and the author of Kabul Carnival, a book about gender politics in postwar Afghanistan. “The despair is settling in. Perhaps that [suicide] is the last attempt by those who have left no power to say something and be heard.”
* Names have been changed for the safety of interviewees
‘Despair is settling in’: female suicides on rise in Taliban’s Afghanistan
Bilal Karimi, the deputy spokesman of the Islamic Emirate, said that Afghanistan’s soil will not be used against any country.
British High Commissioner to Pakistan Jane Marriott claimed that Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other terrorist organizations continue to operate in Afghan territory.
In an interview with Pakistani Geo News, Marriott said that if the activities of these groups in Afghanistan are not stopped, they may become a threat to Pakistan and the world.
“Pakistani military and security forces are bearing the brunt of these attacks across the border from Afghanistan. So, in many ways they are paying a price to keep the world safe, as well as Pakistan safe. Pakistan has deployed many security forces in the border area to try and stop terrorists from coming over the border,” Marriott said.
Several military experts offered different views on the allegations made by the British High Commissioner to Pakistan that there are terrorist groups operating in Afghanistan.
“There is definitely no terrorism in Afghanistan. We ask them if Pakistan asserts that the TTP is present, how can it enter Afghanistan from your territory since you do have a very powerful army,” Yusuf Amin Zazi, a military expert, told TOLOnews.
However, the Islamic Emirate denied the presence and activity of terrorist groups in Afghanistan.
Bilal Karimi, the deputy spokesman of the Islamic Emirate, said that Afghanistan’s soil will not be used against any country.
“Afghanistan is peaceful, stable, and secure; there is no instability or group that harms other nations from Afghan soil, and there is no basis for the claims and statements that are made,” Karimi said.
This comes as Pakistan has repeatedly criticized the presence of terrorist groups in Afghanistan and demanded that the Islamic Emirate fight against them.
British Official Claims TTP Operating in Afghan Territory