Taliban Rounds Up Over 28000 Beggars From Kabul

The London metropolitan police protects the offices of Iran International TV station.

According to the statement published by the London Police, the suspect had been arrested by the Metropolitan Police Counterterrorism Command on Saturday.

Dovtaev has been charged with violating Section 58 of the Terrorism Act of 2000.

The court has charged him with collecting information likely to be useful for committing or preparing an act of terrorism

The Iranian authorities have repeatedly threatened Iran International and its employees. These threats have increased significantly following the coverage of the nationwide uprising of the Iranian people against the Islamic Republic in recent months by the TV station.

Hanafi added that when the Mufti (religious leader) forbids something, he must also introduce an alternative.

Hanafi urged scholars of the Islamic world and Afghanistan to enlighten Afghanistan.

Hanafi’s sharp criticism comes at a time when the Taliban leader has banned the right to education and work of Afghan women.

Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, the leader of the Taliban who has not been seen in public and the Kandahar circle, is against the education of girls and has so far been able to impose his decisions on the cabinet of the group in Kabul.

Some prominent figures of the Taliban occasionally raise their voices against these decisions, but so far, they have not been able to convince the leader of the group to reverse the decision on Afghan women.

Haqqani’s criticism of monopoly of power

In addition to the criticism about closure of schools and universities for girls and banning them from work, the issue of monopoly of power within the Taliban has also been criticised by members of the group.

On Saturday, Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban's interior minister, criticised the current situation under the Taliban in Afghanistan and within the group.

This powerful figure of the Haqqani network openly criticised the monopoly of power by the Taliban and said that the current situation is not acceptable.

According to Haqqani, the current situation increases the rifts between the Taliban government and the Afghan people.

Since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, many countries in the region have urged the group to form an inclusive government with the participation of all ethnic groups in Afghanistan and considered this as a way out of the current deadlock.

However, the Taliban have not even stuck to the idea of symbolic power-sharing structure and have appointed their members to all government positions across the country.

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.