The Taliban has established a new radio station focused on Sharia law, named “Radio Shariat”, in Laghman province. According to the Taliban-controlled Bakhtar News Agency, the new radio station will operate as part of the Afghanistan National Radio and Television Directorate.
The new radio station has been launched at a time when the Taliban have imposed severe restrictions on independent media in Afghanistan.
According to many media watchdog groups, Afghanistan’s media sector is in a free fall after the Taliban’s takeover of the country in August 2021.
Taliban has accepted responsibility for the attack on civilians in Daikundi and called it "repression of the rebels". Abdul Nafe Takor, the Taliban’s interior ministry spokesman, claimed that the Taliban forces attacked armed people in Sewak Shibar area, of Daikundi province.
The Taliban official said that in the operation, nine people had been killed and four others had been injured.
The Taliban’s interior ministry spokesman added that the group’s security forces had sent two local officials to the area to ask the armed people to put down their weapons. However, the "rebels" had refused to give up their weapons.
Sources said on Friday that the Taliban killed nine civilians by attacking Sewak village in Nili district of Daikundi province.
Local sources said that the Taliban waged the operation and killed these civilians with the cooperation of the local Taliban members.
Local sources said that around 200 Taliban intelligence forces had been involved in the attack.
The spokesperson of the Taliban's Ministry of Interior has claimed that after the "rebels" refused to lay down their weapons, the group’s fighters started an operation in which two Taliban members have also been killed and one has been wounded.
Takor denied that children have been killed in the Taliban’s attack and claimed that the dead people were armed.
Reliable reports, from the region, however, indicate that four of the victims of the attack had been children aged 1 to 14.
United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) announced on Saturday that the deputy head of the office concluded meetings with Tajikistan and Uzbekistan leaders on additional regional support to the Afghan people.
UNAMA stressed that the office continues to work with all regional actors to assist efforts for meaningful peace in Afghanistan.
Markus Potzel, the UN Special Representative’s Deputy for Political Affairs, visited the two northern neighbours of Afghanistan in the past week.
Uzbekistan Foreign Minister, Vladimir Norov, said on Friday that he had spoken with Potzel about establishing an international group to negotiate with the Taliban government.
He added that the purpose of creating the international group is to agree on an algorithm for faster implementation of mutual obligations.
Taliban has reacted to the UN’s stance on violence against women and said that "democracies have the highest level of violence against women". Abdul Qahar Balkhi, the Taliban's foreign ministry spokesman, said that one in three women in the US experiences violence and is raped.
Balkhi has also claimed that "this is also true for other democratic governments".
The spokesperson of the Taliban's Foreign Ministry added that Islamic governments are obliged to take measures to protect women from a similar destiny.
The Taliban’s stance comes a day after the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) announced that Afghanistan is among the countries with the highest rate of violence against women.
UNAMA stressed that since last summer, many rights of Afghan women have been revoked or restricted.
After the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021, the group has imposed severe restrictions on Afghan women.
Amnesty International called on Taliban to immediately halt hardline practices, like public floggings, as punishments meted out by the group’s court. It said that these punishments are just another step in the legalisation of inhuman practices by the Taliban’s justice system.
The watchdog group stressed that the group’s hardline practices expose the de-facto authorities’ complete disregard for international human rights law.
Three women and 11 men had been publicly flogged on Wednesday on the orders of a Taliban court on charges of theft and moral crimes in Logar province of Afghanistan.
“The public flogging of women and men is a cruel and shocking return to the hardline practices by the Taliban. It violates the absolute prohibition of torture and other ill-treatment under international law and should not be carried out under any circumstances,” said Samira Hamidi, Amnesty International’s South Asia Campaigner.
The rights organisation added that the Taliban continue to ignore widespread criticism as they flagrantly flout basic human rights principles.
Amnesty International called on the Taliban to establish a formal justice mechanism with fair trials and access to legal remedies. It also asked the international community to intensify its efforts to ensure the de-facto authorities in Afghanistan abolish all cruel, inhuman and degrading punishments.
On November 14, the Taliban’s supreme leader, had given an obligatory order for full implementation of sharia law in Afghanistan. Since then, the Taliban have carried out several public floggings on women and men accusing them of adultery, theft, same-sex sexual conduct or kidnapping, in different provinces in Afghanistan.
In an open letter to the United Nations, the family of Elaha Delawarzai, claimed that the team behind her evacuation to Pakistan had revealed her whereabouts to Taliban. According to the family, the Haqqani network kidnapped Delawarzai from Islamabad and returned her to Kabul.
The family of Delawarzai stressed that in her last message, the abducted women told them about the revelation of her whereabouts to the Taliban.
Delawarzai, a former medical student, recently claimed that she was raped and tortured by Qari Saeed Khosty, the former spokesman of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban's interior minister.
In an open letter to the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA), the family of Delawarzai said that she had given an interview to a reporter from the Toronto Star on November 11 after which, she had gone missing.
In an interview with the Toronto Star, Delawarzai revealed that she had left Afghanistan and was wanted by the Taliban.
Delawarzai stressed that she was disappointed with every stakeholder. "The world is still rolling the red carpet under the feet of the Taliban, while many women are brutally tortured in Taliban prisons," Delawarzai insisted.
She also stressed that she was worried that the Taliban might harm her in the neighboring country.
According to Delawarzai's family, they had been informed by a source after November 11 that she had said in a call that "the Haqqani network knew her address in Pakistan". She said that she had been returned to Kabul and Qari Saeed Khosty has told her to submit to the Taliban court.
Khosty, a former spokesperson of the Taliban's Ministry of Interior, has been accused of using his position to forcibly marry Delawarzai and subjected her to sexual assault and violence.
After the revelation of Khosty’s sexual assaults by Delawarzai, the Taliban official accused Delawarzai of insulting sacred things.
In the open letter to UNAMA, Delawarzai's family said that as threats increased against her, Human First organisation, headed by Safi Raouf, evacuated her from Afghanistan.
The family said that Delawarzai had been living in a house rented by Rauf’s organisation until October 26, 2022.
The family added they found out on November 24, that someone mentioned Khosty on Twitter and wrote in Pashto, "your wife is with us".
Delawarzai's family added that the photo posted on Twitter was the same picture which the driver of the Human First team had taken from Delawarzai and sent to Rauf on the day they had evacuated her to Pakistan.
In the letter, it has been stated that only the driver and Rauf had copies of that photo.
Delawarzai’s family said that Raouf denied being the only one who had access to that photo and said that he had shared the photo with the United Nations.
Delawarzai's family has rejected the claim that she was arrested by the Pakistani police and returned to Afghanistan, saying that they are certain that she was kidnapped by the Haqqani network.
The family stated that they are not aware of Delawarzai’s current situation or if she is alive and asked UNAMA and human rights organisations to intervene with the issue.