Panjshir Resident Dies After Taliban Members Torture Him, Allege Locals

As per a report and sources who spoke to CPJ, Shearer and Faizbakhsh were filming in the Sherpur area of District 10 in Kabul on August 17, where a U.S. drone strike killed Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri earlier in August, when several security guards stopped them. The guards, then, called the Taliban intelligence and around 50 armed intelligence operatives arrived, who blindfolded Shearer and Faizbakhsh and transferred them to an unknown location, the journalists familiar with the case told CPJ.

Shearer and Faizbakhsh were questioned about their activities and their work permits, ID cards, and passports were checked and then confiscated along with their cellphones.

CPJ, while urging for cessation of detention of journalists, said, “The Taliban’s increasing pressure and escalating numbers of detentions of journalists and media workers, including the detention of American filmmaker Ivor Shearer and his Afghan colleague Faizullah Faizbakhsh, show the group’s utter lack of commitment to the principle of freedom of the press in Afghanistan.”

Carlos Martinez de la Serna, CPJ Programme Director, added, “Taliban officials must immediately release Shearer and Faizbakhsh and stop their intimidation and pressure on the press in Afghanistan.”

CPJ has not been able to verify the reason for the detention of Shearer and Faizbakhsh or where they were being held. However, sources have informed CPJ of the constant summons Shearer got from the Taliban since he arrived in Kabul.

Shearer had arrived in Afghanistan in February to produce a documentary about the last 40 years of Afghanistan’s history. Faizbakhsh worked as a producer supporting international journalists in Afghanistan and was contracted by Shearer, according to the journalists familiar with the case.

Earlier too, Shearer had been summoned to the Taliban’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where ministry spokesperson Abdul Qahar Balkhi questioned and asked him to present his past work, one of the journalists familiar with the case told CPJ. According to that source, Shearer was told that he was summoned because Taliban intelligence was suspicious of his presence in Kabul.

Then, several Taliban intelligence agents had visited a guest house where Shearer was staying in Kabul in July. They too had questioned him about his work and stay.

According to the Taliban-affiliated News Agency Bakhtar, Yaqoob said that the Taliban have fought against the "occupation" of Afghanistan for two decades and do not want to lose it in any way.

"There are political and economic challenges, but we cannot accept anyone's orders against Islamic values. National interests should be preferred over personal interests. We do not want to live under someone else's shadow," Yaqoob said.

Over the past few years, there was a public holiday in Afghanistan on Independence Day, but the Taliban celebrated the Day without a holiday at the Ministry of Defense. Several Taliban military officials were present at this ceremony.

The Defense Minister of the Taliban at the ceremony added that efforts are being made to divide Afghans in the name of ethnicity, language, and position. He asked Afghans to forget the past and remain united.

The Taliban held a grand meeting with the participation of their officials in Kandahar on Thursday.

According to media reports, around 3,000 tribal elders, religious scholars, and Taliban officials participated in the meeting and discussed the current affairs of Afghanistan.

This was the second largest meeting of the Taliban that has been held so far. Previously, the Taliban held a three-day meeting in Kabul, in which, according to the group, participants pledged allegiance to their leader, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada.

In the Kandahar meeting, Taliban officials defended the restrictions which have been imposed in various aspects of life in Afghanistan.

Taliban call the resistance fighters as rebels.

Taliban-affiliated media outlet, Bakhtar News Agency, quoted Ahmadi, as saying, “Three rebels have been killed and one has been wounded in an ambush of security forces in Badakhshan province on Thursday night.”

United Nations and human rights organisations have objected to the killing of civilians by the Taliban in the absence of a fair judiciary system.

On August 18, Amnesty International in a statement said that in the past one year, thousands of Afghans have been arbitrarily arrested, tortured, disappeared or even killed by the Taliban.

Stating that the Taliban have committed gross violations of human rights and conducted revenge killings that have repeatedly occurred, the watchdog group has emphasized on creating a mechanism for effective investigation and accountability in Afghanistan.

Taliban-affiliated Bakhtar News Agency has published parts of the speech attributed to the Taliban leader, but no picture of him at the Kandahar meeting, has been published.

Since the fall of Kabul to the Taliban on August 15, 2021, the person whom the Taliban consider to be their leader has never appeared in public. However, periodically the Taliban publish decrees, news and audio files attributed to Akhundzada.

Bakhtar News Agency has quoted Akhundzada as asking Afghan professionals who have left the country to return "to build airplanes and vehicles inside the country because it will benefit the nation”.

Akhundzada has also said that he has “issued a decree to take care of child beggars”. “If a child of this country remains uneducated, the responsibility will return to me,” the Taliban leader has stressed. He said that he has asked Taliban officials to admit children begging on the streets to schools.” However, the Taliban leader still has not spoken about providing secondary education for girls in Afghanistan.

It has been more than 335 days since the Taliban prevented the reopening of girls' schools in Afghanistan.

The educational system in Afghanistan has suffered dramatically in the past two years as a result of COVID-19 and the Taliban reign of the country.

On Thursday, the Taliban held a meeting in Kandahar with the presence of the group's officials. In a resolution issued at the end of the Kandahar meeting, the Taliban condemned the US airstrike in Sherpur area of Kabul, which led to the killing of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda leader.

In this resolution, it has also been mentioned that any neighbouring country of Afghanistan that has allowed the American drone to fly in its space is also a partner in this "crime".