Opium Cultivation Up by 32% in Afghanistan, Says UNODC

The Taliban has been accused of detaining their opponents under false pretexts in various provinces of Afghanistan. The group has also been accused of not respecting the prisoners' rights.

In a report released in July, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) confirmed the torture, arrest, and killing of dozens of people by the Taliban over 11 months since their takeover in 2021.

Even global rights watchdogs, like Human Rights Watch (HRW) and Amnesty International, have expressed deep concerns over the torture and arbitrary arrests of civilians. HRW in a statement had said that the Taliban tortured civilians and in some cases the detainees lost their lives due to the torture.

Amnesty International too has published accounts of arbitrary arrest of journalists and former Afghan soldiers under false pretexts.

The foreign minister of the Taliban stressed that the crackdowns indicated the "favour of God, the cooperation of the nation, and the sacrifice of the young" members of the Taliban.

The Taliban foreign minister reacted to the formation of new political groups outside Afghanistan too. He accused these groups of being servants of foreign elements in return for financial support.

Many Afghan politicians have announced the formation of new political coalitions in recent weeks.

Among others, Afghanistan Justice and Freedom party, led by former vice-president, Sarwar Danesh, has announced to work towards establishing a federal system in Afghanistan.

Earlier, Afghanistan National Movement for Peace and Justice announced its formation with the leadership of former foreign minister, Mohammad Hanif Atmar, and Mohammad Masoom Stanekzai, the former chief peace negotiator of Afghanistan with the Taliban.

Muttaqi clearly pointed out to the new groups and said, "Serving others was not useful before and will not be useful now."

He called on Afghan politicians to return to Afghanistan and live under the Taliban regime which he called “the shadow of honour and dignity".

After the fall of the previous government in 2021, Afghanistan’s banking system remained in a crisis. The United States froze around nine billion dollars in foreign currency reserves of the Central Bank of Afghanistan, due to the Taliban’s takeover of the country.

However, American and Taliban officials have held many rounds of negotiations in Qatar to release these frozen funds.

Coupled with other developments, in recent months, the Central Bank, under the control of the Taliban, has announced receiving at least a 40-million-dollar aid package every week.

During their phone call, Abdullah and West considered the reopening of girls' schools as a necessity and the desire of Afghans and stressed that intra-Afghan dialogue is needed to resolve the problems and ensure national stability in Afghanistan.

Meanwhile, the US special representative for Afghanistan, in a conversation with former president Hamid Karzai on Thursday, also emphasised that real talks must be initiated among Afghans about the future of Afghanistan.

The United States and some European countries and political figures have repeatedly urged the Taliban to negotiate with other parties inside Afghanistan and form an inclusive government based on the Doha Agreement. However, the Taliban clearly have not responded to such international demands.

One of the participants of the protest said that a Taliban commander said that they did not have the right to hold protests.

The women stressed that they had gathered in Share Naw area to hold a peaceful and non-violent demonstration.

The protesters said that Afghan women have raised their voices hundreds of times over the past year since the Taliban has taken over Afghanistan, but the international community has been silent about their situation.

In Afghanistan, it has been more than a year since secondary and high schools have been closed to Afghan girls. Taliban have also deprived women of work and political participation.

After the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, they immediately began rolling back the rights of women and girls. Women began to protest on the streets since Taliban’s first week in power, despite the grave risks they faced in doing so. Women and girls have protested the Taliban’s restrictive policies and have demanded the right to education, work, and justice.

These protests have always been met with violence. The Taliban response was brutal from the beginning, beating protesters, disrupting protests, and detaining and torturing journalists covering the demonstrations.

Dozens of women have been arrested and tortured for holding peaceful protests demanding their rights, amid mounting restrictions that have stripped away their freedoms.

Earlier too, women from all communities came together in Kabul and protested, chanting slogans against the Taliban regime, however, the Taliban violently supressed them.