Taliban Tight-Lipped on Expulsion of Hazara Female University Students In Kabul

The Russian President discussed Afghanistan at the sixth Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia (CICA) in Astana Kazakhstan on Thursday.

Putin also discussed the terrorist attack that targeted the Russian Embassy in Kabul on September 5 and said that such terrorist attacks in Afghanistan confirm that terrorism remains a major challenge in Afghanistan.

Addressing the participants, the Russian president noted that to normalise the situation in Afghanistan, joint support to improve the economic situation of the country is needed.

He added, "We want reparation for the losses caused to Afghans during the years of occupation and the release of illegally frozen reserves of Afghanistan."

CICA is an organisation that has 27 countries as members and eight other countries with five organisations as observer members. Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Cambodia, China, Egypt, India, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Pakistan, Palestine, Qatar, South Korea, Russia, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Uzbekistan, and Vietnam are permanent members of CICA.

However, Afghanistan’s representative was not present at the sixth summit of CICA.

CICA observer member countries are Indonesia, Ukraine, the United States, Belarus, Japan, Philippines, Laos, and Malaysia.

The United Nations, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the International Organisation for Migration, the Arab League, and the Parliamentary Assembly of Turkic-speaking countries are the observers’ organisations in CICA.

Takashi had previously urged the Taliban to not restrict women's rights.

Taliban's foreign ministry stressed that the Japanese ambassador has assured them of the continuity of his country’s cooperation with the people of Afghanistan. Muttaqi has requested Japan's cooperation in infrastructure projects in Afghanistan.

While the Taliban has always asked for foreign aid since taking power on August 15, 2021, Muttaqi however, has mentioned the group’s “budget without foreign aid" as an achievement of the Taliban.

Muttaqi has also spoken about the progress the Taliban has made in the economic sector of Afghanistan and stressed on the "collection of revenue, fight against narcotics, treatment of addicts and human rights". However, according to the United Nations, 95% of Afghan citizens do not have enough food and the Taliban has been accused of widespread human rights violations.

Bennett stressed that the reason for his visit to Kabul was to report on the situation based on his first-hand experience of the ground.

According to the statement of the Taliban's foreign ministry published on Tuesday, referring to the human rights situation of Afghanistan, Muttaqi had said that "warlords and kidnappers can no longer violate anyone's rights”.

The Taliban's foreign minister added that the leader of this group, Hibatullah Akhundzada, has issued decrees and in meetings has “encouraged members of the Taliban to treat people well and give them their rights”.

Muttaqi asked Bennett to cooperate and publish the facts instead of criticising one another.

The UN Special Rapporteur meets with the Taliban’s foreign minister, while the group is accused of severe human rights violations against Afghans.

The demonstration had been scheduled to march toward the British Parliament. The organisers of the demonstration said that the march will continue in front of the parliament.

Several representatives of the demonstrators will, then, enter the UK Parliament and meet with the parliamentarians.

After the deadly attack at the Kaaj educational center in the west of Kabul, Afghan citizens have held demonstrations in and abroad Afghanistan. In the past days, thousands of Afghan citizens protested in nearly a hundred cities around the world and demanded an end to the "Genocide of Hazaras" in Afghanistan.

The demonstrators have said that the Hazaras have been subject to systematic killings in Afghanistan ruled by the Taliban. They have urged the rights groups and countries to investigate and take actions against the genocidal killings of Hazaras.

According to UN reports, at least 53 students had died, and more than a hundred others had been injured in the suicide attack at the Kaaj educational center.

The attack has been widely condemned and a week later, no one has claimed responsibility for it.

It stated that Afghanistan’s civil society has come together to call out the extreme persecution faced by the Hazara community. Since the Kaaj attack, the hashtag #StopHazaraGenocide has gone viral, with over eight million mentions on Twitter - and this number is only growing. This is an instance of unprecedented unity, where all communities, regardless of ethnic or religious sect, within and outside of Afghanistan’s borders, are standing in solidarity with the Hazara people as well as suppression and happening in northern provinces of Afghanistan such as Panjsher, Baghlan and Takhar.

#StopHazaraGenocide has also been supported by members of the international community, where politicians, human rights activists, artists and even the renowned Turkish novelist, Elif Shafak, have all joined the online protest movement.

“The Hazara community face vulnerability due to their ethnicity, but also due to the fact they predominantly adhere to the Shia sect of Islam. Now that the Taliban has once again violently usurped power in Afghanistan, Hazaras no longer have representation in cabinet positions, provincial and district governors, mayors and police chiefs. Whilst there have been two appointments of Hazaras, this has been purely symbolic. Without genuine representation, the Hazara community lack security and protection – leaving them vulnerable. There is also broad consensus amongst the Taliban that Shias are not ‘proper Muslims’. In fact, the Taliban’s persecution of other ethnic groups, such as Tajiks and Uzbeks, demonstrate the exclusionary state they are trying to build – where the Taliban is attempting to erase the mosaic nature of Afghanistan’s communities,” the statement read.

This most recent massacre of the Hazara school children has generated unprecedented levels of solidarity amongst Afghanistan’s civil society. Women from all communities came together in Kabul and protested, chanting slogans against the Taliban regime, however, the Taliban violently supressed them. Then, female university students in provinces of Herat and Bamiyan followed suit and held protests, where they were similarly beaten up and dispersed. Next, women in Balkh province took to the street to protest the regime. Dissent led by the civil society groups has not stopped, where protests continue to take place in all major cities across Afghanistan.

The protests have not been limited to Afghanistan. Afghanistan’s diaspora communities have protested internationally showing solidarity with the Hazara and Tajik communities, who have been continuously targeted by the Taliban since their takeover. Over the weekend, diaspora communities of Afghanistan have rallied, holding protests in almost 100 cities across the globe.

The statement added that since 2015, when IS-K’s brand emerged in the security scene of Afghanistan, there have been horrible incidents against the Shia community of Afghanistan. It stated that under the Taliban rule, the Hazara community continues to be heavily persecuted and targeted, with little done to protect them from suicide bombings and other unlawful attacks.

This statement comes as on September 30, a terrorist strapped with explosives entered the Kaaj education centre in West Kabul. He killed the guard and then set off the detonator, blowing himself up along with hundreds of teenagers – Hazara girls and boys – who were receiving tutoring for their university entrance exam. As the girls were seated in the front rows of the large room, separated from the boys, as per Taliban regulation, many more of them were killed and injured. Latest reports confirm 53 deaths, at least 46 of them girls, leaving another 110 injured.