Tag: Afghan Taliban

  • Casualties showed after blast close to Kabul mosque

    An explosion went off close to a mosque in Afghanistan’s capital of Kabul on Friday, with police confirming casualties.

    A column of black smoke rose into the sky and photographs rang out a number of mins after the blast within the town’s diplomatic quarter.

    Khalid Zadran, a spokesman for the Kabul police leader, showed there have been casualties, however may now not supply a bunch for the ones killed or wounded.

    Internal Minister spokesman Abdul Nafi Takor stated the blast went off at the major highway close to the mosque. He stated the purpose was once underneath investigation. Takor stated police groups had been on the website and that an investigation was once underway.

    Mosques have in the past been a goal for assaults.

    The blast happened close to the Wazir Akbar Khan mosque which, in 2020, was once struck by means of a bomb that killed two folks, together with the mosque’s prayer chief.

  • Afghan Taliban order ladies TV anchors to hide their faces

    Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers ordered all feminine presenters on TV channels to hide their faces on air, the rustic’s largest media outlet stated Thursday.

    The order got here in a observation from the Taliban’s Distinctive feature and Vice Ministry, tasked with imposing the gang’s rulings, in addition to from the Data and Tradition Ministry, the TOLOnews channel stated in a tweet. The observation known as the order “ultimate and non-negotiable,” the channel stated.

    The observation was once despatched to the Moby Staff, which owns TOLOnews and several other different TV and radio networks, and the tweet stated it was once being implemented to different Afghan media as neatly.

    An Afghan native media legitimate showed his station had gained the order and was once informed it was once no longer up for dialogue. He stated the station has no different possibility. He spoke on situation he and his station no longer be recognized for worry of issues of the government.

    A number of feminine anchors and presenters posted their footage on social media appearing them with their faces lined with face mask all the way through presenting systems. One outstanding TOLO presenter, Yalda Ali, posted a video of herself placing on a face masks with a caption: “a lady being erased, on orders from the Distinctive feature and Vice Ministry.”

    On one station, Shamshad TV, implementation of the order was once combined: One girl anchor gave the impression with a face masks Thursday, whilst some other later within the day went with out, appearing her face.

    Throughout the Taliban’s first time in energy from 1996-2001, they imposed overwhelming restrictions on ladies, requiring them to put on the all-encompassing burqa that even lined the eyes with a mesh and barring them from public existence and schooling.

    Once they seized energy once more in Afghanistan in August, the Taliban first of all gave the impression to have moderated moderately their restrictions, saying no get dressed code for girls. However in contemporary weeks, they’ve taken a pointy, hard-line pivot that showed the worst fears of rights activists.

    Previous this month, the Taliban ordered all ladies in public to put on head-to-toe clothes that leaves most effective their eyes visual. The decree stated ladies must go away the house most effective when vital and that male relations would face punishment for girls’s get dressed code violations, beginning with a summons and escalating to court docket hearings and prison time.

    The Taliban chief additionally issued a decree barring ladies from attending faculty after the 6th grade, reversing earlier guarantees by means of Taliban officers that ladies of every age can be allowed an schooling.

  • Taliban announce girls will have to quilt faces in public, say burqa is perfect

    The Taliban on Saturday dominated Afghan girls will have to quilt their faces, in step with a decree from the gang’s preferrred chief, an escalation of rising restrictions on girls in public this is drawing a backlash from the global neighborhood and lots of Afghans.

    A spokesman for the Ministry for the Propagation of Distinctive feature and the Prevention of Vice learn the decree from the gang’s preferrred chief Hibatullah Akhundzada at a press convention in Kabul, announcing {that a} lady’s father or closest male family member can be visited and in the end imprisoned or fired from executive jobs if she didn’t quilt her face outdoor the house.

    They added the best face overlaying was once the all-encompassing blue burqa, which turned into a world image of the Taliban’s earlier hardline regime from 1996 till 2001.

    Most ladies in Afghanistan put on a headband for non secular causes, however many in city spaces akin to Kabul don’t quilt their faces.

    The gang has confronted intense pushback, led through Western governments however joined through some non secular students and Islamic international locations for his or her rising limits on girls’s rights.

    A marvel U-turn in March during which the gang shuttered ladies’ top colleges at the morning they had been because of open drew the ire of the global neighborhood and brought about the US to cancel deliberate conferences on easing nation’s monetary disaster.

    Washington and different countries have lower construction assist and enforced strict sanctions at the banking device, for the reason that Taliban took over in August, pushing the rustic against financial damage.

    The Taliban has mentioned it has modified because it remaining dominated when it banned ladies’ training or girls leaving the home with no male family member and ladies had been required to put on quilt their faces.

    Alternatively in fresh months the management has larger its restrictions on girls together with laws restricting their shuttle with no male chaperone and banning women and men from visiting parks on the similar time.

  • ‘Protests towards Taliban gained’t prevent until colleges for women reopened’

    LAST WEEK the Taliban went again on their most-concrete promise but to reopen top colleges for women, leaving many that became up for sophistication, simplest to be became again, in tears. This time regardless that the scholars have now not retreated in the back of the doorways in their houses as the federal government meant; many are out at the streets.

    “You took my holy land, now don’t remove my pen”, “What’s my crime that I will have to be denied training?”, “No govt is solid with out the make stronger of ladies”, “If my sister can’t cross to university, neither will I…” — those are one of the most slogans and questions being raised through the academics, principals and scholars of ladies’ colleges, and ladies activists, protesting in Kabul towards the rule of thumb barring training for lady scholars Magnificence 6 onwards.

    The worry of returning to a gloomy previous is one explanation why. The opposite is the realisation that six months into the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, the arena’s consideration has moved onto different problems and wars. As according to some estimates, round 3 million ladies in Categories 7 to twelve are out of faculty within the nation.

    Sorya Top Faculty for Women, Kabul

    “They’re proscribing training for women as a result of they know that after they do that, universities and faculties will empty on their very own in coming years,” says Tamana Formuly, a science instructor on the Shams-Ul-Huda Top Faculty, which has observed 700 of its 1,000 ladies barred. However this time, it’s other, Formuly tells The Indian Specific. “The worry of loss of life is long past now. Those protests gained’t prevent until colleges for women are reopened.”

    Lecturers like Formuly, a few of whom have come beneath Taliban glare for his or her activism, are surprised on the ease with which the Taliban have stopped training for women, the similar as all through their first stint in energy just about twenty years in the past, proper beneath the noses of the United International locations and world leaders. “In spite of all of the guarantees made through the Taliban to the arena, even ladies in giant towns like Kabul and Herat are being disadvantaged of training,” Formuly says.

    She provides that the six months of Taliban rule had additionally proven that the ladies couldn’t rely on make stronger from inside. “Sadly in Afghan society, we nonetheless have fathers who don’t make stronger training for his or her daughters. Who will talk for the ones ladies if now not their academics?… With out training, they’re going to simply be slaves of fellows.”

    Ayesha-e-Durani Top Faculty for women in Kabul, only some meters clear of the Presidential Palace ARG

    Karima Rahimyar, a biology instructor from Ghazi Mohammad Jan Khan Faculty, Kabul, says no less than 4,000 in their 6,000 ladies have now not been ready to wait college. The previous few days, Rahimyar has been at the streets with a ebook in a single hand and a placard within the different. “Sure we used to worry the Taliban twenty years in the past, however now we don’t,” she says.

    Nafiza Wakili, a instructor from a woman’s highschool in Nimruz, says: “Instructing ladies is extra vital than instructing boys as a result of she will probably be a mom the following day… We really feel like prisoners once more. I’ve labored for women’ training for 10 years and now I’m sitting at house.”

    Rabia-e-Balkhi ladies college in Karte-4, Kabul

    Shima Siddiqui, foremost of Naswan Rodaba Women’ Faculty, Nimruz province, says she and her husband needed to flee house and keep away for 2 weeks after threats from the Taliban. Her telephone with messages supporting ladies’ training and criticising the Taliban, used to be seized and damaged.

    “Of the 4,000 ladies in my college, just about part can’t come now… They (the Taliban) don’t need girls to growth as a result of in the event that they do, the Taliban gained’t have the ability to enforce their extremist regulations in Afghanistan. They’re terrified of vigilant girls,” Siddiqui says.

    She additionally lists how the Taliban have damaged the hearts of ladies at each and every step. “When the federal government fell in September 2021, colleges have been intended to open in tropical provinces, however the Taliban banned them for women. Then colleges have been opened for boys, and lots of ladies have been pressured into kid marriages, some were given melancholy, attempted suicide… Scholars and academics are in combination now.”

    Farzana Sharif, who has evolved a number of curriculum college books for the Ministry of Training, says: “We request the world group to press the Taliban… Previously twenty years, many ladies have transform graduates, postgraduates or even executed PhDs and they’re not being allowed to paintings. Despite the fact that many academics are in a position to show ladies on-line, it’s not an choice in the longer term.”

    Fawzia Koofi, the primary lady deputy speaker in Afghan Parliament and president of the Motion for Trade Celebration, says: “Closure of colleges for women is towards nationwide pastime, additional isolates Afghanistan and boundaries the rustic’s political and financial long term. Additionally it is towards Islamic values. Islam emphasises on training for all, regardless of gender.”

    Probably the most scholars hoping the arena will pay attention is Rahima Temori. She says it is going to cross down in historical past that ladies don’t seem to be being allowed to visit college within the twenty first century. “It’s a large disgrace for all folks.”

  • UN leader tells Safety Council: Afghanistan ‘putting by means of thread’

    Afghanistan is “putting by means of a thread,” with tens of millions struggling excessive starvation, training and social services and products on the point of cave in and a loss of liquidity proscribing the capability to succeed in other folks in want, U.N. Secretary-Basic Antonio Guterres instructed the Safety Council on Wednesday.

    “We wish to droop the foundations and stipulations that constrict no longer simplest Afghanistan’s financial system, however our lifesaving operations.

    At this second of utmost want, those regulations should be significantly reviewed,” Guterres instructed the 15-member council.

    He once more referred to as for international locations to factor basic licenses overlaying transactions important to all humanitarian actions.

    “We wish to give monetary establishments and business companions criminal assurance that they are able to paintings with humanitarian operators with out worry of breaching sanctions,” Guterres mentioned.

    Some $9.5 billion in Afghan central financial institution reserves stay blocked outdoor the rustic and world make stronger given to the former govt has dried up for the reason that Taliban seized energy closing August.

    “We wish to jump-start Afghanistan’s financial system via higher liquidity. We should pull the financial system again from the edge. This implies discovering techniques to disencumber frozen forex reserves and re-engage Afghanistan’s Central Financial institution,” Guterres mentioned.

    In December, donors to a frozen Global Financial institution-administered Afghan Reconstruction Believe Fund agreed to switch $280 million to the Global Meals Program (WFP) and U.N. youngsters’s company UNICEF to make stronger vitamin and well being in Afghanistan.

    “We want the remainder $1.2 billion to be freed up urgently, to assist Afghanistan’s other folks live on the wintry weather,” Guterres mentioned.

    “Time is of the essence.”

    The United International locations previous this month appealed for $4.4 billion in humanitarian assist for Afghanistan in 2022. On Wednesday, it mentioned it wanted an additional $3.6 billion for well being and training, fundamental infrastructure, promotion of livelihoods and social concord, particularly the wishes of girls and women.

    The United International locations has pledged to paintings with international locations to make sure that price range don’t seem to be diverted or misused, however the U.N. particular envoy on Afghanistan, Deborah Lyons, famous on Wednesday that there used to be nonetheless reluctance amongst donors to disencumber price range.

    “It’s transparent that donors, who face their very own home constituencies, are nonetheless no longer glad with the political growth in Afghanistan and are gazing carefully for encouraging indicators,” Lyons mentioned.

  • Pakistani policeman, 2 gunmen killed in shootout in capital

    Two gunmen opened fireplace at cops manning a roadside checkpoint within the capital, Islamabad, on Monday evening, triggering a shootout that killed an officer and each assailants, police mentioned.

    Two policemen had been additionally wounded within the assault close to a marketplace, the Islamabad police mentioned in a remark. They mentioned the wounded officials had been taken to clinic. Internal Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed condemned the assault and ordered an investigation.

    Nobody instantly claimed duty for the assault and police are nonetheless investigating. Despite the fact that militants ceaselessly goal safety forces in Pakistan, such assaults in Islamabad are uncommon.

    Closing Friday, militants attacked a military put up within the restive northwest, bordering Afghanistan, triggering an intense shootout that killed a Pakistani soldier. The Pakistani Taliban, who’ve been emboldened because the Afghan Taliban seized energy within the neighboring nation, claimed duty for the assault.