Hazara, Shia Community 100% Dissatisfied With Taliban, Say Sources

Canada and the Netherlands, as the co-chairs of the MFC, said in a statement on Friday that the decision regarding Afghanistan has been made in consultation with the member states.

Afghanistan became a member of the MFC in January 2020.

According to the coalition’s statement, the Taliban have imposed serious restrictions on media freedom that have threatened the safety and well-being of journalists and media workers.

According to this coalition, the continued harassment, attacks, and detention of journalists and exclusion of women from the media scene have led to a rapid loss of media independence and put journalists’ lives at risk daily.

MFC stressed that the organisation will continue to closely monitor the situation of press freedom in Afghanistan.

After the takeover of Afghanistan, border clashes between forces of the Taliban in Afghanistan and forces of its neighbouring countries, including Uzbekistan, have been reported.

In one incident, the president of Uzbekistan had confirmed the death of an Uzbek soldier due to a gunbattle on the Afghanistan-Uzbekistan border.

The Central Asian countries have also expressed grave concerns about the emergence of Islamic State-Khurasan (IS-K) terror outfit on their borders with Afghanistan.

HRW in its report also stated that Afghans facing imminent deportation are often given no opportunity to make refugee claims. The rights organisation urged Turkey to immediately halt pushbacks of Afghans from its borders and give all Afghans facing removal the opportunity to make refugee claims

The report claimed that HRW had written to the Turkish authorities on October 18 seeking a response to the alleged pushbacks and deportations. “The Presidency of Migration Management in Turkey’s Interior Ministry reported 238,448 “irregular migrants whose entrance to our country has been prevented” in 2022, most of them Afghans. Turkey reported deporting 44,768 Afghans by air to Kabul in the first eight months of 2022, a 150 percent increase over the first eight months of 2021,” the report stated.

“Although Turkey has rightly earned international acclaim and support for hosting the largest number of refugees of any country in the world, it is simultaneously pushing many Afghans back at its borders or deporting them to Afghanistan with little or no examination of their claims for international protection,” said Bill Frelick, refugee and migrant rights director at Human Rights Watch.

Turkey hosts the largest number of refugees of any country in the world, an estimated 3.9 million people, 3.6 million Syrians with temporary protection and 320,000 others, mostly Afghans.

Since taking power, the Taliban have imposed severe restrictions across Afghanistan, carried out revenge killings and enforced disappearances of former government officials and security force personnel, detained and beaten journalists, summarily executed alleged Islamic State fighters, and failed to protect groups targeted for attack by the Islamic State, such as ethnic Hazaras.

HRW stated that pushbacks violate multiple human rights norms, including the prohibition of collective expulsion under the European Convention on Human Rights, the right to due process in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and the principle of nonrefoulement under the 1951 Refugee Convention, which prohibits the return of refugees to places where their lives or freedom would be threatened.

The participants in an informal meeting of the UN Security Council expressed their concerns about the situation in Afghanistan.

In addition to representatives of several countries, members of civil society and regional experts were also present in this meeting.

Alakbarov said, “65 percent of the population of Afghanistan needs humanitarian aid. This year, we expect a 35-40 percent decrease in the country’s GDP."

According to him, the financial system of Afghanistan has collapsed and the cost of food has become unbearable for the people of Afghanistan, leaving families in debt.

He added that with the current situation in Afghanistan, more than 700,000 people have lost their jobs.

According to Alakbarov, three-quarters of the income of the Afghan people has been spent on preparing food.

Norov was addressing the European Union and Central Asia meeting, which was held on Thursday in Uzbekistan. The foreign ministers of regional countries and Josep Borrell, the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, were present in the meeting.

Uzbekistan’s foreign minister also stated that the formation of an international negotiations group to coordinate and talk with the Taliban officials was discussed in the meeting with the EU officials.

Norov also emphasised that Afghanistan should not be isolated from the world.

The Uzbek foreign minister called on the international community to make coordinated efforts and provide practical assistance to the Afghan people.