Kabulov: Removal Process of ‘Taliban’ Names From Terrorist List Ongoing

July 10, 2024 Current News Articles

Hadia Ziaei

Tolo News

10 July 2024

Russia has consistently emphasized global engagement with the Islamic Emirate.

Zamir Kabulov, Russia’s special envoy for Afghanistan, told Russia’s TASS news outlet that the process of removing “Taliban” officials’ names from the terrorist list is ongoing.

In a report, TASS quoted Kabulov saying that this process is “going well.”

The report said: “Asked when the Taliban could be removed from the list, Kabulov, who is also director of the Foreign Ministry’s Second Asia Department, replied, “When all procedures are completed. They are still going on.”

“The majority of Central Asian countries and other countries that follow Russia’s policies are doing the same, which will benefit the people of Afghanistan,” said Salim Paigir, a political analyst.

Russia has consistently emphasized global engagement with the Islamic Emirate.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov have previously emphasized the removal of “Taliban” officials’ names from the terrorist list, stating that they are the real power in Afghanistan.

Simultaneously, the Islamic Emirate also welcomed this decision by Russia, calling it the right of Afghanistan’s caretaker government.

Hamdullah Fetrat, deputy spokesperson for the Islamic Emirate, told TOLOnews: “It is the right of the Afghan people that their officials’ names be removed from the blacklist and all imposed restrictions on Afghanistan be lifted.”

Some political experts believe that removing the Islamic Emirate officials’ names from Russia’s prohibited list could have positive impacts on the Islamic Emirate’s relations with some countries around the world.

“Current Afghan officials must also take steps based on national interests, abandon confrontation, and focus on dialogue,” said Mohammad Zalmai Afghanyar, a political analyst.

After Russia’s Ministries of Justice and Foreign Affairs proposed to President Vladimir Putin the possibility of removing the “Taliban’s” name from the list of terrorist groups, Kazakhstan was the first country to remove the names of Islamic Emirate officials from the terrorist group list.

Blinken Advocates for Afghan Women’s Rights

July 10, 2024 Current News Articles

TOLOnews

TV Network

10 July 2024

Afghanistan: Taliban ‘morality police’ crack down on women

July 10, 2024 Current News Articles

Shristi Mangal Pal

DW Deutsche Welle
July 10, 2024

According to a new report released by the UN, Taliban “morality police” squads in Afghanistan enforce bans on western haircuts, music and prohibit women from traveling without a male escort.

Taliban walk past a sign calling for women to wear veils
Taliban vice squads have put up banners in Kabul, saying women to wear a hijab that fully covers their face and bodiesImage: Yaghobzadeh

The Taliban government in Afghanistan is carrying out stricter enforcement of religious law in Afghanistan through the deployment of “morality police,” according to a UN report published Tuesday.

The UN report said the Taliban has created a “climate of fear” since the Islamist militant group regained power in August 2021 and set up the so-called “Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.”

In its report covering the ministry’s activities, the UN assistance mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) reported that the ministry is responsible for curtailing human rights and freedoms, particularly targeting women in a discriminatory and unfair way.

Since taking power, the Taliban have also barred girls and young women from receiving an education, while keeping women out of public jobs.

What does the report say?
The report says the ministry enforces a strict interpretation of Islamic law that cracks down on personal freedoms for women and girls, while eliminating a free press and civil society.

Morality police squads have the power to scold, arrest, and punish citizens who participate in activities considered to be “un-Islamic,” including wearing “Western” hairstyles and listening to banned music.

The ministry rejected the UN report, and claimed its decrees were issued to “reform society,” and should have their “implementation ensured,” the Associated Press reported.

UN condemns Taliban crackdown on girls’ education

There is a “a climate of fear and intimidation” owing to the ministry’s invasion of Afghans’ private lives, ambiguity over its legal powers, and the “disproportionality of punishments,” the report said.

The Taliban government has overseen a ban on women travelling without male escorts, enforced a conservative dress code, barred women from public parks and shut women-run businesses, the report added.

The Taliban government defended the decision to enforce male escorts for women, saying they are “to safeguard her honor and chastity” while referring to Islamic dress as “a divine obligation.”

Women in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan “face increasing restrictions” including on their movement, speech, assembly, right to work, education, and much more,” Political Sociologist Katja Mielke told DW.

Her research focuses on Afghanistan and other South and Central Asian countries.

“More than 100 restrictions concerning women’s rights have been introduced since the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan,” she said.

However, these rules vary across the country, and women’s ability to work and hold important jobs depends on the industry.

It’s clear that women are still working, but the Taliban have discussed possible salary cuts.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International tweeted on Wednesday, there is an “urgent need for Taliban to roll back on moral policing.”

Ban on ‘Western haircuts’
The Taliban morality police also enforce “measures to reduce intermingling between men and women in daily life,” and instruct barbers to refuse “Western style” haircuts for men and arresting people playing music.

The vice ministry denied banning women from public places and said it only intervened in mixed-gender environments.

The UNAMA report is “trying to judge Afghanistan from a Western perspective”, when it is an Islamic society, Taliban government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said late Tuesday.

“All the rights of Islamic law are guaranteed to citizens, men and women are treated in accordance with Sharia law, and there is no oppression,” Mujahid posted on social media.

sp/wmr (AFP, AP, dpa)

DW Akademie | Volontariat Jahrgang 2023 – 2024 | Shristi Pal
Shristi Mangal Pal Multimedia journalist and presenter

How The Emirate Wants to be Perceived: A closer look at the Accountability Programme

July 9, 2024 Current News Articles

Martine van Bijlert

Afghanistan Analysts Network

9 Jul 2024 print sharing button

As the third anniversary of its return to power approaches, the Islamic Emirate is presumably readying itself for another round of its Accountability Programme, as it has done in the past two summers. These televised sessions, held by ministers and other senior officials in front of journalists, provide a fairly detailed overview of the Emirate’s policies and preoccupations, in terms of what it wants the media, the nation and the world to know. Ahead of the next round, AAN’s Martine van Bijlert (with input from the AAN team) lays out what can be learned from last year’s programme, by drawing out the key themes and messages in the officials’ own words. In doing so, the report provides a basis for a clearer understanding of what the Emirate might choose to showcase in this year’s sessions, providing an indication of its evolving focus as it prepares to enter its fourth year in power.

You can preview the report online and download it by clicking here or the download button below.

The Emirate’s second round of accountability sessions since its return to power took place in the summer of 2023. Like all press conferences, the sessions were first and foremost an exercise in ‘impression management’. That is also, precisely, where their value lies. The depth and scope of the sessions, on their own and combined, provide important insights into what the Emirate cares about, how it wants to be perceived and by whom. To this end, the AAN team has watched, transcribed and analysed the televised presentations, identifying key themes and quotes to present a comprehensive perspective in the report.

Over the course of five weeks, from 23 July to 22 August, 42 government ministries and departments discussed their missions and aims, their place within the Emirate, the achievements of the previous year and their plans for the next. The Prime Minister’s Office chaired the introductory session but did not provide a report of its own. Conspicuously absent from the presentations were the Ministry of Finance, the General Directorate of Intelligence and the Office of the Supreme Leader – three key bodies when it comes to the economic, security and ideological shape of the Emirate.

Key themes in the sessions, and thus in this report, include the IEA’s consolidation of what it believes to be an Islamic system, the dual push towards self-sufficiency and connectedness, the expansion of a digitalised administration and the rooting out of what it sees as the ill effects of the last twenty years. The more technical and infrastructural departments often provided fairly extensive descriptions of their activities, but beyond that, actual overall figures on budgets, spending and revenues were scarce. A presentation by the Ministry of Finance was greatly missed. The pressing issue of women’s rights, including access to education featured heavily – not in the presentations, but very much so in the Q&A sessions with journalists afterwards, illustrating both how high on the agenda it remains and how seriously the media took its role.

In its discussion of the presentations, the report provides an in-depth and layered picture of how the Emirate spoke about itself and how it wanted to be perceived by the Afghan nation at the end of its second year in power. It notes how, during the last twelve months, as AAN continued to follow the Emirate’s media messaging, the themes that emerged in summer 2023 continued to be at the heart of Emirate communications in officials’ statements, speeches and interviews. In that respect, this report is both a snapshot of the state of play as it stood in the summer of 2023 and an illustration of the Emirate’s consistency in its messaging, across institutions and over time.

The IEA’s key speaking points – the ‘temporary nature’ of some of the restrictions on women and girls, the primacy of the Islamic system, the ongoing need to reform both the apparatus of state and the population, especially through the work of the Virtue and Vice Ministry, the insistence on wanting good relations with the outside world and the claims of remarkable progress with almost no outside funding –are likely to feature again in the forthcoming round of accountability sessions. If the previous schedule is maintained, they should take place this month and next.

Comparing how it presented itself in 2023 with what it chooses to showcase this year will be a good indicator of how the Emirate’s focus has evolved over the last twelve months. It will be particularly interesting to see how Emirate messaging uses the recent thaw in its relations with the outside world to its advantage, as illustrated by its participation in the United Nations-convened Special Envoys’ meeting in Doha on 30 June – 1 July. We look forward to seeing how the IEA frames its third year of rule and what may have changed or shifted.

Edited by Roxanna Shapour and Kate Clark

You can preview the report online and download it by clicking here or the download button below.

Accountability-Sessions-FINAL Download

Australia-based sprinter ‘honoured’ to represent oppressed women after making Afghan Olympic team

July 9, 2024 Current News Articles

Jack Snape

The Guardian

Afghanistan’s Olympic flag bearer at the Tokyo Olympics has said she represents “the stolen dreams and aspirations” of women who have suffered under Taliban rule after winning selection for the Paris Games from her new home in Australia.

Sprinter Kimia Yousofi was one of five athletes and administrators who escaped from Afghanistan in 2022 and received safe passage to Australia after the Taliban took control of her homeland.

The 28-year-old has been selected to appear at her third Games by the Afghanistan Olympic Committee, which operates outside the country. She said it was “an honour” to represent the girls and women of Afghanistan “who have been deprived of basic rights, including education, which is the most important one”.

She said she hoped to represent those women “who don’t have the authority to make decisions as free human beings”.

“They don’t even have the permission to enter a park,” she said.

President of the Afghanistan Olympic Committee, Dr Yonus Popalzay, said the team will send three women to a Games for the first time, alongside three men. “We highly appreciate the Australian Olympics Committee for the support extended to Kimia Yousofi. On behalf of the Afghanistan Olympic Committee please convey our message of gratitude and appreciation to Australian nation and government for support to Afghanistan in a difficult time,” he said.

The Taliban has reportedly refused to recognise the team. “Only three athletes are representing Afghanistan,” Atal Mashwani, the spokesman of the Taliban government’s sports directorate, told AFP, referring to the male competitors.

Yousofi will race in the 100m in Paris. She is not expected to progress past the heats, but her Australian coach John Quinn says the sprinter has been an inspiration to her training partners. “On the track she has improved enormously technically since coming here and she has a great squad around her. But when you consider everything else she has had to juggle – training, a new language, getting her family here, all those things, she has been amazing.”

AOC chief executive Matt Carroll said Yousofi’s relocation to Australia and appearance in Paris has been made possible by bipartisan support in federal politics. “Her story is one of inspiration for women and girls in Afghanistan and anywhere in the world, who are denied basic rights, including the right to freely practice sport.”

a series against Afghanistan this year over concerns that conditions for women and girls in the country were deteriorating. A group of Afghan women’s cricketers based in Australia have been unsuccessful in lobbying the International Cricket Council to form a refugee team. The men’s Afghanistan team reached the semi-finals of last month’s T20 World Cup in North America.

The Paris Games will feature a 37-member Refugee Olympic Team representing more than 100 million forcibly displaced people worldwide.

UNICEF concerned over increase in mental health disorders among children in Afghanistan

July 9, 2024 Current News Articles

By Fidel Rahmati

Khaama Press

July 9, 2024

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has expressed concerns over increasing mental health issues among children in Afghanistan, stating that nearly 40% of these children currently face psychological disorders.

The agency revealed in a report on Monday, July 8th, 8th, that 24% of children aged five to seventeen have experienced severe anxiety, marking a 10% increase compared to the global average.

UNICEF further stated that an additional 15% of these children are experiencing severe depression.

However, UNICEF attributes the primary causes of mental health issues in Afghan children to ongoing conflict, continued migration, family displacement, increased poverty levels, and the dangers posed by leftover explosives from the war in Afghanistan.

The organization has established 750 psychosocial support centers across Afghanistan to assist boys and girls facing these challenges.

This dire situation in Afghanistan unfolds against the backdrop of a severe humanitarian crisis following the Taliban’s assumption of power.

The Taliban’s imposition of restrictions on education beyond sixth grade, particularly for girls, has had profound consequences. It has led to a significant increase in underage and forced marriages as families, facing economic hardship and fearing for their daughter’s safety and future, resort to marrying them off early.

This practice not only robs these girls of their right to education and childhood but also perpetuates cycles of poverty and gender inequality.

The combination of economic hardship and educational restrictions has created a bleak outlook for Afghan youth, especially girls, who are denied the chance to build a better future through education and empowerment.

Malala Yousafzai urges new UK PM to prioritize girls’s education in Afghanistan

July 9, 2024 Current News Articles

By Fidel Rahmati

Khaama Press

July 9, 2024

Malala Yousafzai, an advocate for girls’ education, urges Britain’s new Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, to prioritize the issue of girls’ education deprivation in Afghanistan and other countries in his foreign policy.

Yousafzai tweeted on Monday, July 8th, “As you shape Britain’s foreign policy and development plans in the next 100 days, it is crucial to prioritize the rights and education of girls worldwide, with special consideration for those denied education under the Taliban’s gender apartheid regime in Afghanistan.”

The education activist and Nobel laureate addressed Starmer, noting that girls everywhere look to him for solidarity and initiatives.

She emphasized that girls’ education should be on top of his foreign policy agenda in the next 100 days.

For over a thousand days, girls above the sixth grade in Afghanistan have been deprived of education by the Taliban. The Taliban claim that the conditions for girls’ education are not suitable, yet they provide no timeline for reopening schools.

Under Starmer’s Labour Party leadership, which secured a significant majority in this week’s UK parliamentary elections, he reversed the previous conservative government’s decision to send asylum seekers to Rwanda, a move that adversely affected Afghan refugees in the country.

Meanwhile, Yousafzai’s call underscores the urgent need for global attention and action to ensure girls’ education rights are upheld, particularly in regions affected by extremist regimes like the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Starmer’s government faces significant international expectations to lead on this issue, reflecting broader global concerns about human rights and gender equality in education.

Over 200 Arrested in Kabul in Counter-Narcotics Operations: Official

July 9, 2024 Current News Articles

TOLOnews

TV Network

9 July 2024

Some experts believe that to prevent poppy cultivation and drug trafficking in Afghanistan, other countries should also cooperate with the Islamic Emirate.

Khalid Zadran, the Kabul security command’s spokesperson, told TOLOnews: “The Counter-Narcotics Directorate of the Kabul Security Command has conducted 181 operations in various parts of Kabul, in which 225 suspects have been arrested and handed over to the law.”

UNICEF Reports High Rates of Anxiety, Depression Among Afghan Children

July 9, 2024 Current News Articles

By Hadia Ziaei

Tolo News

9 July 2024

Currently, the lack of access to education and fear of an uncertain future are other significant concerns for girls in Afghanistan.

The United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) reported that more than 24% of children aged 5 to 17 in Afghanistan are experiencing anxiety, and nearly 15% are suffering from depression.

The report cites war and insecurity, migration, displacement of families, natural disasters, poverty, and the ban on girls’ education as the main causes of depression and anxiety among children.

“Compounding these challenges is the persistently restrictive measures on girls’ education, limiting their hope for employment and a better future, as well as their access to basic services like healthcare and mental health support,” the report reads.

Over the years, children in the country have suffered from various psychological and emotional traumas, with girls potentially being more vulnerable than boys during this time.

Currently, the lack of access to education and fear of an uncertain future are other significant concerns for girls in Afghanistan.

Motahira, an eighth-grade student, told a TOLOnews reporter: “It has had a very negative impact on my life because I really wanted to study and serve society.”

Aisha, another student, said: “It’s really upsetting, and I was very sad. I would sit in a corner of the house and not talk to anyone.”

Meanwhile, for boys in the country, poverty and hardship are major concerns, making them increasingly vulnerable each passing day.

Sharif, who works from dawn to dusk to provide for his family’s table, said: “I came here to work. There are twelve people in my house, and only my father works. I work here and get paid fifty rupees a week.”

Tahmina Qadari, a psychiatrist, told TOLOnews: “A child’s personality is 85% formed by the age of five. If we consider a five-year-old as a child, 85% of their personality is already shaped, whether positively or negatively, by the family. So, families need to be aware and properly nurture them.”

Based on this report, UNICEF will provide enhanced mental health care and psychosocial support to 3.6 million children in Afghanistan this year.

Shahabuddin Delawar Affirms Leadership’s Latest Appointments

July 9, 2024 Current News Articles

TOLOnews

TV Network

9 July 2024

Hidayatullah Badri said that this appointment is not a privilege but a responsibility.

Shahabuddin Delawar, speaking at a ceremony introducing Hidayatullah Badri as the acting Minister of Mines and Petroleum, emphasized that obedience within an Islamic system is a fundamental principle.

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