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April 16, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Amnesty International: Responding to the double public executions by the Taliban yesterday, Livia Saccardi, Amnesty International’s interim Deputy Regional Director for South Asia, said: “We oppose all executions as a violation of the right to life. The Taliban has been repeatedly carrying them out publicly which is a gross affront to human dignity as well as a violation of international laws and standards and cannot be tolerated. Full news...
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April 9, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Independent News: The Taliban in Afghanistan have announced plans to restrict or completely block access to Facebook, a move condemned by rights activists. The Taliban’s acting minister of telecommunications and information technology Najibullah Haqqani confirmed the plans in an interview with Kabul-based TOLO News last week.Reeling from two decades of siege and war, millions of people in Afghanistan have limited access to cellular services and internet connection in a widening information blackout. Full news...
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April 3, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
AP News: The Taliban held a public execution on Monday of a man convicted of murder in northern Afghanistan as thousands watched at a sports stadium, the third such death sentence to be carried out in the past five days. The execution took place in heavy snowfall in the city of Shibirghan, the capital of northern Jawzjan province, where the brother of the murdered man shot the convict five times with a rifle, according to a witness. Security around the stadium was tight, said the witness, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. Full news...
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March 28, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Guardian: The Taliban’s announcement that it is resuming publicly stoning women to death has been enabled by the international community’s silence, human rights groups have said. Safia Arefi, a lawyer and head of the Afghan human rights organisation Women’s Window of Hope, said the announcement had condemned Afghan women to return to the darkest days of Taliban rule in the 1990s.“With this announcement by the Taliban leader, a new chapter of private punishments has begun and Afghan women are experiencing the depths of loneliness,” Arefi said. Full news...
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March 22, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
BBC News: Teenage Afghan girls have told the BBC they feel “mentally dead” as the Taliban’s ban on their education prevents them from returning to school once again.More than 900 days have now passed since girls over 12 were first banned. The Taliban have repeatedly promised they would be readmitted once a number of issues were resolved - including ensuring the curriculum was “Islamic”. But they have made little comment as a third new school year started without teenage girls in class this week. Full news...
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March 22, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Foreign Policy: Al Qaeda is back to its old tricks in Afghanistan. Much as it did before masterminding the 9/11 attacks, the terrorist group is running militant training camps; sharing the profits of the Taliban’s illicit drug, mining, and smuggling enterprises; and funneling the proceeds to affiliated jihadi groups worldwide. An unpublished report circulating among Western diplomats and U.N. officials details how deeply embedded the group once run by Osama bin Laden is in the Taliban’s operations, as they loot Afghanistan’s natural wealth and steal international aid meant to alleviate the suffering of millions of Afghans. Full news...
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March 17, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
THE Nation: Pakistan’s Special Representative on Afghanistan Ambassador Asif Durrani has said that Pakistan’s peace talks with the banned Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) failed in the past because the militant group was neither ready to surrender nor swear allegiance to the constitution of Pakistan. The third primary reason for the deadlock in talks was that the group didn’t want to face the law for the heinous crimes it committed, including the attack on the Army Public School (APS) in Peshawar, he added. Full news...
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March 8, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Aljazeera News: Small groups of Afghan women have gathered in private spaces to demand that harsh restrictions on their freedoms be lifted, despite recent Taliban crackdowns on protests that have seen activists detained. The demonstrations were staged in different locations, including the provinces of Takhar and Balkh, as the world celebrated International Women’s Day on Friday, according to the activists from the Purple Saturdays group – an organisation formed to raise awareness and oppose restrictions on women’s freedoms. Full news...
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March 8, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
UN NEWS: Police enforcement has increased harassment in public spaces and further limited women’s ability to leave their homes, according to testimony from 745 Afghan women participating in the latest survey by UN Women, International Organization for Migration (IOM) and the UN’s Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).The insights follow recent reports of the arbitrary and severe enforcement of the hijab decree, particularly in Kabul, the agencies said – which began publishing quarterly consultations with diverse Afghan women a year after the Taliban took power in August 2021. Full news...
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March 7, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
ANF News: The Kurdistan Women’s Community (Komalên Jinên Kurdistan, KJK) sent a message to the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) on the occasion of March 8, International Working Women’s Day, saying the following: “First of all, we salute you on March 8, International Working Women’s Day, and with that, all women around the world who struggle against male domination, colonialism, religious fundamentalism, nationalism and capitalism. We respectfully commemorate all revolutionary women, who have lost their lives for this cause, and we renew our promise that we will keep their memories alive in our struggle and realize their dreams. Full news...
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March 7, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
UN News: Kanni Wignaraja, Director of UNDP’s Regional Bureau for Asia and the Pacific, who recently visited the country, told correspondents in New York that 69 per cent of Afghans are “subsistence insecure” – meaning they do not have enough basic resources. “Something that really hit me … was the harsh impact of continuous natural disasters,” she said, adding that many parts of Afghanistan are facing “dramatic” scarcity of water further setting back development efforts. Full news...
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March 7, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
UN Women News: Since August 2021, Afghan women and girls have been grappling with increasingly restrictive decrees limiting their participation in all aspects of social, economic, and political life. These have confined millions of women to their home, restricting their important contributions to society. Their already dire situation has been compounded in recent months by humanitarian crises. First, devastating earthquakes rocked western Afghanistan in October 2023. Then, since November 2023, hundreds of thousands of Afghans have been forced to return after a Pakistani decree on undocumented migrants went into effect. According to International Organization for Migration (IOM) data, an estimated 80 per cent of those affected are women and children. Full news...
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March 4, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Daily Excelsior News: The death toll from freezing weather and snowfall in the chilly winter has reached 39 in Afghanistan as spell cold continues in parts of the country, spokesman for national disaster authority Mullah Janan Saeq said Sunday. “About 39 persons of our countrymen have been martyred and 30 others injured due to rain, snowfall and cold weather. Also, 637 houses have been destroyed and 13,889 cattle have died due to the freezing climate,” Saeq told Xinhua. Full news...
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March 2, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Rukhshana News: Eight people have been flogged and sentenced to prison on charges of “abuse and dishonor” in western Herat province, a Taliban court said Thursday.The Taliban Supreme Court newsletter said the eight people were punished with 20 lashes each and sentenced to five months imprisonment. The decision by Herat’s military court was endorsed by the Taliban Supreme Court, it added. Following its takeover of Afghanistan, the Taliban has resumed its rule by severe corporal punishment and swift executions, sometimes as a public spectacle. Full news...
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February 26, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Indian Express News: Afghan women feel scared or unsafe leaving their homes alone because of Taliban decrees and enforcement campaigns on clothing and male guardians, according to a report from the UN mission in Afghanistan.The report, issued Friday, comes days before a UN-convened meeting in the Qatari capital is set to start, with member states and special envoys to Afghanistan to discuss engagement with the Taliban and the country’s crises, including the human rights situation. Full news...
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February 26, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
RAWA NEWS: On 19th November 2023 the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, with this title, proudly presents on its website funds of 4.5 million euros for 2022 specifically aimed for supporting Afghan women.In particular, they said the support is in favor of “Fawzia Koofi, the first vice-president of the Afghan Parliament, as well as former President of the Commission for women’s issues and human rights, who after the fall of Kabul into the hands of Taliban, continued to fight to promote the rights of Afghan women and girls. In June 2022, thanks to the support of the Women’s Peace Humanitarian Fund (WPHF), Fawzia Koofi traveled to Geneva to ask the United Nations Human Rights Council to hold a debate on the women’s and girls’ rights crisis in Afghanistan. ...Fawzia Koofi’s denunciation activity would probably not have been possible without the contribution of the United Nations WPHF...” Full news...
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February 23, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Independent: The Taliban on Thursday executed two men convicted of stabbing by gunfire in Afghanistan’s southeastern Ghazni province. Thousands of people watched the public execution in broad daylight after the Taliban-led Supreme Court convicted the two men for a murder by stabbing. The court identified the two men as Syed Jamal from central Wardak province and Gul Khan from Ghazni but did not clarify who carried out the stabbings. Full news...
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February 21, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Hindu News:A Taliban official said journalists were committing “a major sin” by taking pictures, Afghan media reported on Wednesday. Television and pictures of living things were banned under the previous Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001, but a similar edict has so far not been imposed since authorities took back power in Afghanistan in 2021. “Taking pictures is a major sin,” Mohammad Hashem Shaheed Wror, a senior official in the justice ministry, told a seminar for department staff in the capital Kabul on Tuesday, according to footage broadcast by several media. Full news...
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February 20, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Afghan Women News: Local sources in Balkh province report the shooting of a young woman by unidentified armed individuals in the province. According to the sources, the body of a woman who had been shot was discovered in the village of Kol Ambu in the Balkh district of Balkh province on the morning of Monday, February 5. According to an informed source, this woman was shot by unidentified armed individuals around 4 a.m. Her identity and the motive behind her murder are not yet clear. Full news...
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February 18, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
ANF News: The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA) sent a message to the internationalist women struggling in Rojava on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the international conspiracy that led to Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan’s abduction from Kenya and handover to Turkey on 15 February 1999.We, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, advocate united struggle and solidarity for the release of Abdullah Öcalan and all political prisoners.For more than half a century, Afghan women have been living under the heavy burden of imperialism and oppressive fundamentalist regimes. Recently, the Taliban regime has further oppressed women and ignored everything related to them. It has usurped women's rights and dignity, confined them to their homes and imposed compulsory head covering, arresting those who do not comply. Full news...
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February 13, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Taipei Times News: Human Rights Watch (HRW) yesterday said that Afghanistan’s public health system has been hit hard following a sharp reduction in foreign assistance, coupled with serious Taliban abuses against women and girls, jeopardizing the right to healthcare for millions of Afghans. In a new report, the New York-based watchdog said this has left the “Afghan population increasingly vulnerable to severe malnutrition and illness” among other effects of inadequate medical care. Full news...
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February 6, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Human Rights Watch: In the last two and a half years after regaining power in Afghanistan, the Taliban, have created the world’s most serious women’s rights crisis. They have systematically violated the rights of women and girls including as they relate to education, paid employment, freedom of speech and movement, and political participation among many others. The response of the international community has been tepid and seems to lack an appreciation of how the situation in Afghanistan has grave implications for the rights of women and girls globally. More needs to be done to prevent this from developing any further and to reinforce global commitment to gender equality. Full news...
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February 1, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Dawn News: ALMOST two years after they seized control of Kabul, the Afghan Taliban are still engrossed in suffocating Afghan women. Education for girls in secondary school and women in university was banned a while ago. Then a ban was imposed on women working in NGOs, adding to the restrictions on women working for the government. This plethora of curbs eliminating and erasing women from the public sphere was not enough for the Taliban. Recently, women working in beauty parlours came to work to find out that the faces of women on signs advertising their parlours had been erased. Full news...
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January 31, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Khaama Press: According to the report published on Tuesday, January 30th, al-Qaeda has managed to maintain a “holding” position under the rule of the Taliban, leading to tensions between the Taliban and some al-Qaeda leaders due to the Taliban’s efforts to restrict the group’s activities in Afghanistan.The United Nations Security Council had previously expressed concerns about the presence of terrorist groups and their activities in Afghanistan. The latest report from the council indicates that al-Qaeda lacks the operational capacity to organize large-scale attacks with its remaining members. Full news...
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January 23, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Afghanistan Time:United Nations Assistance Mission in its latest report has said that the Taliban’s Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice played a key role in enforcing restrictions on women’s rights, particularly in areas of work, education, and freedom of movement. The ministry’s actions, including impeding unmarried women and those without a male guardian from working or accessing services, were documented during the reported period. Full news...
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January 23, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
East London Advertiser: The Taliban are restricting Afghan women’s access to work, travel and healthcare if they are unmarried or do not have a male guardian, according to a UN report.In one incident, officials from the Afghan vice and virtue ministry advised a woman to get married if she wanted to keep her job at a healthcare facility, saying it was inappropriate for an unwed woman to work.The Taliban have barred women from most areas of public life and stopped girls from going to school beyond the sixth grade (aged 11-12) as part of harsh measures they imposed after taking power in 2021, despite initially promising more moderate rule. Full news...
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January 19, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Khaama Press News:The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) reported on Friday, January 19th, citing the United Nations Office (UNAMA) that this cash is held in a dedicated account at a private bank and is not transferred to the Central Bank under the Taliban control. However, critics argue that the Taliban still influence how this money is spent. In June 2023, a reliable source at the Central Bank of Afghanistan under Taliban control confirmed that $40 million packages of humanitarian aid are being sent to Kabul, but the Taliban no longer publicizes this news through the media. Full news...
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January 15, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Washington Post: Their names are Khoshbakht, Saliha, Fawzia, Benazir, Farzana and Nazia — Afghan girls ages 6 to 10 who have been sold into marriage. Desperation forced their parents to thrust them into brutal adulthood. In Shahrak-e-Sabz, a settlement of makeshift mud-brick homes and tents for the displaced in Herat province that we visited last month, our researchers counted 118 girls who had been sold as child brides, and 116 families with girls waiting for buyers. This amounts to 40 percent of families surveyed, even though the Taliban decreed in late 2021... Full news...
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January 10, 2024 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
CBS News: Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have rounded up dozens of women in an apparent crackdown on perceived violations of the group’s strict dress code. Dozens of women and girls were detained briefly last week in Kabul, a senior Taliban spokesperson told CBS News on Monday, confirming what appeared to be a new tactic in the group’s efforts to curb women’s rights. The arrests by the Taliban’s morality police occurred over several days and first came to light via videos and photos posted on social media. The Taliban confirmed the arrests after photos and video clips showed women being loaded onto the back of police pickup trucks in the capital city. Full news...
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December 30, 2023 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Al Jazeera: After five years of medical training, Lima, 28, should be one year into her residency as a doctor, perfecting her diagnostic skills. Instead, she takes temperatures and administers injections, tasks she has been doing at an emergency room in Kabul for three months now. While this is not the work she expected to be doing at this point in her career, she’s happy to at least be doing this.“Being at the hospital means I can stay close to my field.It helps me to stay connected to it,” Lima told Al Jazeera over the course of several telephone calls. She is identified by her first name only for safety reasons. Full news...