Ban on Women From Working Threatens Lives of Afghans, Says UN

The embassy said that Hassan Kazemi Qomi, Iran's special representative for Afghanistan, has been appointed as the acting ambassador of the country's embassy in Kabul.

Aminian leaves Kabul after his statements delivered in a private gathering on Afghanistan had been leaked from a bulletin of the Fars news agency and published in Afghanistan International.

The statement about the Taliban had become a controversial issue in Afghanistan.

In his speech in Tehran, Aminian had compared the Taliban to the Mongol armies and suggested that the Islamic Republic should treat the group like the Mongols so that they become civilised.

According to international human rights laws, forced disappearances in a systemic manner is considered a "crime against humanity".

Nai added that the organisation has recorded 132 cases of violence against journalists and media workers in Afghanistan in 2022. The organisation stressed that there has been a 17% decline in violence against the Afghan media community compared to last year when 159 cases of violence against journalists had been recorded.

However, Nai emphasised that the reduction of violence against journalists does not mean that Afghanistan is a safe country for journalists and media workers.

The media support organisation also announced that over the past year, hundreds of journalists and media workers have become unemployed, and around 50 percent of the TV stations, 48 percent of radio stations and print media, and 80 percent of online media groups have stopped operations in Afghanistan.

Speaking to Iranian journalist, Mohammad Hossein Jafarian, the NRF leader said that the cost of a watch or cloth of these critics could provide for the resistance fighters for a year.

Recently, Afghan political activists have criticised Ahmad Massoud for being inexperienced in military issues and that the forces under his command have been killed due to lack of ammunition.

However, in response to his critics, Massoud has said that in guerrilla warfare, the fighters cannot carry much ammunition. According to him, Andarabi had run out of ammunition after 30 hours of firefight and had been killed.

The media watchdog group has also emphasised that with the Taliban regaining control of Afghanistan, the achievements of the last two decades in the field of freedom of expression in Afghanistan have been rapidly disappearing.

In 2022, the AFJC recorded at least 260 incidents of violations of the freedom of media and journalists, including threats, arrests, and violent encounters in Afghanistan. The group stressed that the figure shows an increase of about 138% as compared to 2021. The report added that with a few exceptions, the rest of the violations have been committed by the Taliban officials or the group’s members.

In 2021, AFJC had recorded at least 109 incidents, including death of eight journalists and media professionals, as well as the arrest and threats of journalists.

AFJC has stressed that among the detained journalists, at least three journalists and media workers, including Khalid Qaderi, a former presenter of Radio Nowruz in Herat, Faizullah Faizbakhsh, an independent journalist, and Qadratullah Tarar, a reporter for Zarghun TV in Khost, has been in Taliban custody since November 11, 2022.

In the last 12 months, the Afghan Journalists Center has recorded 128 cases of threats to journalists and media organisations.

AFJC’s findings show that the security apparatus, especially the Taliban's Intelligence directorate and the Ministry of Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue of the Taliban, have been directly and indirectly involved in the arrests, threats, suppression of media freedom, and freedom of speech in Afghanistan.

AFJC’s findings show that more than half of the active 600 media organisations including audio, video, print, and online ones, have been closed after the Taliban came to power in 2021, and hundreds of journalists and media workers have left the country, while women journalists have been marginalised.

The humanitarian organisation stated that irrespective of their status, children and families should not be behind bars.

It called on the country’s government to ensure that people should not be punished or criminalised for exercising their fundamental human right to seek asylum.

It also urged countries neighbouring Afghanistan, including Pakistan, to continue to protect those seeking safety.

UNHCR Pakistan while stating that states should suspend forcible returns of Afghan nationals and former habitual residents of Afghanistan until such time as the security, rule of law and human rights situation in Afghanistan has significantly improved, said that refugees should have access to safety.

This comes even as Amnesty International too had earlier expressed concerned regarding the safety of Afghan refugees in Pakistan. Amnesty stated that due to lack of processes to regularise the stay of Afghan refugees in Pakistan, the refugees are facing discrimination and are at risk of arrest and refoulement. Amnesty had also spoken about the detained protestors and urged the government of Pakistan to release them.

Apart from this, even the Taliban's foreign ministry had said that the Pakistani police have been ill-treating Afghan immigrants, especially in Sindh province. The Taliban's foreign ministry condemned the Pakistani police officials behaviour and urged Islamabad to take necessary measures to protect Afghans. It had been reported that over 1000 Afghans have been imprisoned in Pakistan's Sindh province.

In recent weeks, Pakistan has also imposed severe restrictions on Afghans who are without legal residence documents, in the country and set a deadline of December 31, 2022, for them to leave the country.