Explosion Rocks Taliban’s Ministry of Interior, Say Sources in Kabul

“The Taliban must restore full online access to Hasht-e Subh Daily and Zawia News,” said CPJ Asia Program Coordinator Beh Lih Yi in Frankfurt, Germany. “More than ever, Afghans and the world need to know what is happening in Afghanistan. The Taliban must stop suppressing the media.”

The statement added that CPJ contacted the Taliban ministry spokesperson Anayatullah Alokozay for comment about the shutdowns via messaging app, but did not receive any response.

In August, CPJ had published a special report about the media crisis in Afghanistan that shows a rapid deterioration in press freedom over the last year, marked by censorship, arrests, assaults, and restrictions on women journalists.

On October 3, the Taliban’s Ministry of Telecommunications and Information Technology said it had shut down the websites of Hasht-e Subh Daily and Zawia News due to “false propaganda” against the Taliban, according to a tweet from the ministry’s spokesperson Anayatullah Alokozay.

Both the outlets confirmed that the Taliban had deactivated their website domain names. However, Hasht-e Subh Daily has since resumed operations online under a different domain name. Zawia News said it would continue to report on the website of its parent company, Zawia Media.

After a deadly attack on the Kaj educational center in western Kabul, Afghan citizens have condemned it widely and have demanded an end to targeted attacks on Hazaras.

In the past week, female students in Herat, Bamiyan, Balkh, and Kapisa universities have protested in response to a suicide attack on the educational center and supported the "Stop Hazara Genocide" social media campaign.

Hazara activists launched a Twitter campaign with the #StopHazaraGenocide hashtag and have urged the world to recognise the genocide of the Hazaras in Afghanistan.

UNAMA added that accountability and protection of the rights of all Afghans is the key to peace. The UN mission in Afghanistan said on Tuesday that it will "continue to monitor” the situation in Panjshir.

Earlier, the Taliban had announced that Mohammad Mohsen Hashemi had been appointed as the new governor of Panjshir. However, UNAMA named Mohammad Nasim Noori as the governor of Panjshir and said that the UN mission’s teams have met him.

Since the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban in August 2021, Panjshir province has witnessed intense clashes between the National Resistance Front (NRF) and the Taliban forces.

Local sources and the NRF in Panjshir have continuously accused the Taliban of grave human rights violations in the province. The Taliban has been accused of torture, cold blood killings, targeting civilians, and committing war crimes.

Earlier, NRF officials had claimed that they had captured Shekay district and arrested its local officials.

However, Afghanistan International sources confirmed that NRF forces ambushed the district officials on Monday night and arrested them.

The sources said that NRF forces had transferred the captured Taliban local officials to "Dargak" area and released them after two hours.

Meanwhile, a video which had been published on social media on Monday night showed that Mawlawi Akram, the Taliban district governor for Shekay district of Badakhshan province, had been held captive by the NRF forces.

Mawlawi Akram said that the NRF forces had not treated him inappropriately.

On the other hand, NRF forces had been heard in the video confirming that they would release Mawlawi Akram and all the Taliban prisoners without any harm.

On Monday evening, conflicting news about the fall of Shekay district had been published on social media.

Sibghatullah Ahmadi, the spokesperson of the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, announced on his official Twitter account that Shekay district had been captured by the NRF forces.

However, Abdul Nafi Takor, the spokesperson of the Taliban's Ministry of Interior, immediately reacted to the news and denied the claims that Taliban forces had fled the area.

Sources from Kapisa province said that the Taliban members have been violent in dispersing the students.

Over the past three days, protests by female students from Talim wa Tarbia University in Kabul expanded to universities in Herat, Bamiyan, Daikundi, Balkh, Kapisa and Panjshir provinces.

These demonstrations have been held to call for an end to the Hazara genocidal killings in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, protests against killing of Hazara community members have been held in several countries around the world.

The protests have been held after the September 30 attack on an educational center in Kabul in which 53 people have been killed and over 100 have been injured.