Taliban Dissolves 5 Anti-Corruption Bodies in Afghanistan

Earlier, Human Rights Watch had emphasised that all Afghans have the right to freedom of assembly, speech, and opinion.

The Taliban arrested Zarifa Yaqoobi, a women’s rights activist, and four of her colleagues during a press conference in Dasht-e-Barchi area of Kabul last month.

The activists were on the verge of announcing the formation of the "Afghan Women Movement for Equality".

Earlier, Amnesty International had also asked the Taliban to release these activists.

After the Taliban's military takeover of Afghanistan, women have continuously held protest rallies against the strict laws and policies of the group, but the Taliban’s response has been arbitrary arrests and detentions.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s spokesperson, had recently said that these activists receive orders from outside Afghanistan.

Sources said that the girl and boy had visited Bamiyan from Kabul about a month ago when they were arrested by Taliban forces at the Band-e Amir National Park on suspicions of a premarital relationship.

The sources said that each of them had been sentenced to 39 flogs.

Sources stated that the Taliban did not allow the audience to document the flogging scene. Two of these people, who had taken pictures of the flogging, have been detained by the Taliban.

Potzel reiterated the demand for inclusive political processes during his meeting with the members of the Faryab civil society in Maimana city.

The Taliban has been accused of monopolising power and violating the rights of citizens particularly ethnic minorities.

The group has ignored international demands to form an inclusive political process in Afghanistan.

Recently, many reports have emerged that the Taliban have arrested and tortured many civilians in the northern provinces, especially in Panjshir, Kapisa, Parwan, Baghlan, and north of Kabul, on the charges of cooperation with the NRF.

On Wednesday, the representative of Tajikistan at the Moscow consultative meeting expressed concerns about the killing of Tajiks in Afghanistan too.

The Tajikistan representative said that the mass killing of Tajiks has been underway in Panjshir and the northern regions of Afghanistan.

Human rights organisations also published several reports saying that the Taliban had tortured civilians in northern provinces of Afghanistan.

The Taliban's foreign ministry did not name any country, but after al-Qaeda leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in a US airstrike in Kabul, the Taliban criticised Pakistan and said that Islamabad had allowed the US to use Pakistani soil to attack Afghanistan.

The Taliban foreign ministry added that the group believes that the security, stability, and economic prosperity of the region is the joint responsibility of all the countries in the region. The Taliban also said that joint measures need to be taken and to better address the regional issues, and the group must be involved in regional initiatives.

The Taliban’s statement has been issued at a time when at the Moscow meeting, Iran’s Special Envoy for Afghanistan, Hassan Kazemi Qomi, said that his country is against the US return to Afghanistan in the name of reconstruction of the country.

Qomi, added that the current crisis in Afghanistan is the result of the two decades of the presence of the United States and its allies in Afghanistan.

Moscow's consultative meeting on Afghanistan was held on Wednesday with the presence of representatives of at least ten countries from the region.