Senior Leaders With Taliban Continue to Criticise Group’s Leader

On Sunday, the Taliban-controlled Central Bank had announced that it had received another package of 40 million dollars.

After the Taliban’s ban on Afghan women working for non-governmental organisations, the transfer of cash packages to Kabul had stopped for a while, but a few weeks ago, the process had resumed.

Before the resumption of the delivery of cash packages to Afghanistan, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) had announced that since December 2021, approximately $1.8 billion in cash had been transferred to Afghanistan to carry out the activities of the UN organisations and its partners.

UNAMA added that these funds had not been accessed by the Taliban and or the Central Bank.

A statement from Nai does not explicitly mention the Taliban’s restrictions on radio stations’ operations and only mentions the existing challenges as the reason for closure of the radio stations across Afghanistan.

Nai’s statement on the collapse of Afghanistan’s radio stations comes when last week, international human rights groups called on the Taliban to release French Afghan journalist, Mortaza Behboudi.

Reporters Without Borders and 14 French media groups, with whom Behboudi had worked, released a joint statement saying that the reporter was arrested by the Taliban about a month ago in Kabul and was taken to prison on charges of "espionage".

The Taliban spokesperson attributed the arrest of journalists like Behboudi to "prevent rumours and propaganda".

Mujahid said on Sunday at the Taliban’s Ministry of Higher Education that the group "believes in the freedom of the press" in Afghanistan.

According to Ariana News, Mujahid said, "If we observe Islamic principles, national interests, preventing rumours and pure propaganda, the system is very strongly in favour of the press and media, and if the media operates within this framework, it will not have any problems."

In the latest attempt to censor free media, the Taliban have filtered the websites of the Voice of America (VoA) and Azadi radio in Afghanistan.

The General Directorate of Intelligence of the Taliban told Fidai's family that they had arrested the civil activist.

Fidai's family added that the Taliban had not informed them about his whereabouts, but on Monday, Fidai's vehicle had been spotted at the Directorate of the Taliban intelligence agency in Kabul.

This is the second time that the Taliban has arrested this civil society member. Fidai had been arrested in February 2022 too, and had spent three days inside the Taliban prison.

In an interview with an Indian media outlet, WION, the EU special envoy for Afghanistan said that the situation in the country will only get worse.

“We have seen systematic violations of human rights under the de facto government, under the Taliban issuing various decrees, restricting the freedom of movement, and the rights of girls and women. Clamping down on journalists, and ethnic, and religious minorities being under threat. There is no constitution in place, the economy has declined rapidly since the Taliban took over and the security situation is deeply concerning both inside the country, with growing threats from organisations such as ISIS K,” Niklasson said.

Niklasson in the interview in Delhi said, "Afghanistan already harbours quite a number of Jihadis or militant organisations and neighbours are gravely concerned by the security situation.”

He also stressed that with the winter in Afghanistan at least 28 million people are relying on humanitarian aid, but the Taliban decided to ban women from working for NGOs, which in turn restricts full access to suffering Afghans.

On India, Niklasson said that the country has been providing beneficial aid to the Afghans, but is still contemplating on how to engage with the country further.

While emphasising that engagement with the Taliban is necessary for some, Niklasson said that they need to maintain contact with the people of Afghanistan, convey messages, understand the ground situation and facilitate the delivery of assistance.

Niklasson reiterated that the EU continues to stand with the Afghans as it has committed more than Euro 400 million of assistance to Afghanistan which is far more than most regional countries have contributed. He said that currently, they have to focus on what they can do to provide assistance and support to 40 million Afghans who desperately need support, at a time when the Taliban are bringing in radical decrees.

On suppression of women in the country, the EU special envoy stated that the change has to come from inside Afghanistan and they can only remind the Taliban of their obligations under international law.

On Pakistan, Nicklasson stated that Pakistan is deeply concerned by the security threat coming from Afghanistan while on Russia, he stated that it has not played a very constructive role apart from organising a number of regional format meetings.

Khaf county of Razavi Khorasan province shares 91 kilometers of joint border with Afghanistan.

Iranian media have also published pictures of the seized drugs.

The Taliban banned the cultivation and sale of poppy in Afghanistan this year, but no alternative has been announced by the group.

However, there have been reports that poppy cultivation continues in Afghanistan and is being smuggled to neighbouring countries.