Committed to Stay and Deliver to Millions of Afghans In Need, Says UNDP

The Taliban has imposed severe restrictions on the media and journalists over the past 20 months since they have taken control of Afghanistan.

According to a statement issued by the Taliban on Wednesday, Abdul Kabir said that the Taliban sees the media industry as "a bridge between the government and the nation”.

The Taliban’s deputy prime minister urged the media representatives to present the real situation of Afghanistan and refrain from propaganda.

Abdul Kabir also stressed that Afghan society would be incomplete without a strong media industry.

He also asked the media representatives to "maintain their independence and publish the realities of society with a nationalistic and Islamic spirit”.

The Taliban's restrictions and pressures on the media professionals have caused many media groups to end their activities and hundreds of journalists to flee the country.

However, several clerics who had been present at the rally questioned the validity of the issued fatwa.

Abdul Mutalib Amiri, a resident of Panjshir, read the fatwa, a part of which stressed that "the one who succeeds with sword and takes charge of the caliphate, is called "Amir al-Muminin" and for the one who believes in God, it is not permissible to spend even one night without accepting the Amir al-Muminin as Imam.”

The fatwa emphasised that “the government of the Islamic Emirate has been established through allegiance and dominance, both ways for gaining legitimacy, that are considered to be clear signs of an Islamic government”.

Local Taliban officials, including Mohammad Mohsen Hashemi, the governor of the group for Panjshir, participated in this meeting.

However, some clerics who participated in the meeting questioned the validity of the issued fatwa.

One of the participants said that a fatwa is issued by someone who is "the most respected inhabitant of a region”. Referring to the fact that he was invited to issue a fatwa, the cleric said, "How honoured I am that the Islamic Emirate soldiers search me twice,” before entering the venue of the meeting.

According to this participant, the Taliban even checked his turban to make sure that there is no bomb hidden in it.

In the reports broadcast by local media, participants of the programme openly criticised the mistreatment of the people of Panjshir by the Taliban.

Mawlawi Kazem, one of the clerics of Panjshir, said that "issuing a fatwa is not a simple matter in which anyone dares to stand up and issue a fatwa”.

Shaikh Masihullah, a tribal elder, also called on the Taliban to demonstrate good behaviour with the people of Panjshir and said that there should not be a double standard with residents of this province.

Although Panjshir was one of the safest provinces in Afghanistan in the twenty years before the Taliban took over, after the Taliban entered this province, numerous reports of mass arrests, widespread torture and shooting of civilians and prisoners of war were published in this province.

Human rights organisations have accused the Taliban of using widespread violence against the people of Panjshir province and committing war crimes.

The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in a new report published on Tuesday said that the economic production of Afghanistan has fallen by about 20% after the Taliban’s return to power in 2021.

According to the UNDP report, despite some initial signs of economic recovery, including a relatively stable exchange rate, increased exports, increasing demand for labour, and reduced inflation, Afghanistan's GDP has declined by about 3.6 percent in 2022.

Abdallah Al Dardari, the UNDP country representative, said that the continuous provision of 3.7 billion dollars in foreign aid in 2022 has helped prevent the economic collapse of Afghanistan.

According to this report, of a total of 3.7 billion dollars in foreign aid in Afghanistan, 3.2 billion dollars have been provided by the United Nations.

This organisation has said that the aid has directly reached 26.1 million people and has also been effective in the stability of the Afghani currency and curbing inflation in Afghanistan.

The United Nations added that if the level of aid remains the same, Afghanistan's GDP will increase by 1.3 percent this year, but the prospects for long-term economic recovery will remain weak.

The United Nations has said that the Taliban's restrictive decrees on the rights of women and girls, including a directive that prohibits women from working in UN offices, directly affect economic productivity and can also affect the level of aid inflow in Afghanistan.

The United Nations Development Programme has predicted that if foreign aid is reduced by 30% from $3.7 billion to $2.6 billion, Afghanistan's GDP will fall by 0.6%, which could lead the country at the highest level of poverty in the world.

In the message, however, the Taliban has claimed that the group has expanded its educational activities throughout Afghanistan.

The message stated that the education of "children" is one of the obligations of the Taliban government and the group will take effective measures to support this goal.

Meanwhile, it has been almost 600 days since the Taliban closed girls' schools above the sixth grade in Afghanistan. The group has also banned girls and women from university-level education.

The Taliban leader also addressed foreign affairs issues in Afghanistan in his Eid message. The message stated that the Taliban wants to have good relations with neighbouring countries and the world. The message stated, "As Afghanistan does not want to interfere in the internal affairs of any other country, it emphasises that other countries should not interfere in our internal affairs."

The Taliban leader’s Eid message addressed the issue of the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice also and stressed that the Taliban government and Afghan citizens must cooperate with the ministry in charge of addressing vice and virtue.

The leader of the Taliban also said that the Taliban government has implemented "significant reforms in culture, education, economy, and media" and stressed that the moral and cultural impacts of the occupation of Afghanistan are ending.

Although the Taliban occasionally publishes messages and decrees attributed to Hibatullah Akhundzada, the group’s leader, has not been seen in public yet.

The meeting has been organised by the Austrian Institute for International Affairs.

The upcoming Vienna meeting will discuss the situation in Afghanistan and will continue for three days.

This is the second meeting of anti-Taliban political figures in Vienna. The previous meeting had been held in 2022, for three days, and discussed the future of Afghanistan.

In the 2022 meeting, thirty Afghan figures including Ahmad Massoud, and former Afghan National Security Advisor Rangin Dadfar Spanta, discussed international pressure on the Taliban, and support for the resistance against the group in Afghanistan.

A source close to the NRF said that they hope the Vienna meeting will facilitate more cooperation among the political forces opposing the Taliban.