Male & Female Patients Can’t Visit Badakhshan Central Hospital Together, Says Taliban

The journalists' advocacy group said that the Taliban's intelligence agency had opposed the sentence and called for an extension of the journalist's prison term.

On Monday, October 14, the Afghanistan Journalists Centre issued a statement expressing concern over the continued detention of the journalist and the interference of the Taliban's intelligence agency in accordance with the group's court order, and called for the immediate and unconditional release of Hekmat Aryan.

The Centre quoted sources as saying that the journalist was sentenced to prison on Sunday on charges of publishing a report on the Taliban's combat operations.

The head of the private radio station "Khushal" was arrested by the Taliban intelligence agency from his office in Ghazni city on September 29.

Sulaiman Rahel, an employee of the station, said that before the Taliban's return to power, Hekmat Aryan had published a book written by an Afghan writer about the war in Afghanistan and the parties involved in it.

The director in charge of Radio Khushal has been accused of insulting the Taliban in the audio tape.

The Afghanistan Journalists Centre (AFJC) called the sentencing of the journalist "opaque" and "unfair" and warned against the Taliban's interference in the case.

The Centre has asked the Taliban court in Ghazni to reconsider its verdict and drop the journalist's charges.

According to the organisation's statement, the drill will practise fighting illegal armed groups that are planning to attack the region.

According to the statement, the deployment of Russian, Kazakh and Kyrgyz forces to Tajikistan for the exercise began on October 11 and will continue until October 14.

The organisation has released a video of its military deployment to Tajikistan. In these pictures, a convoy of tanks and a variety of military vehicles can be seen.

Regional organisations, including the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO), have repeatedly expressed concern over the past three years about the risk of extremism spreading from Afghanistan to Central Asia.

Kazakhstan holds the presidency of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) this year and hosted another military exercise from member states this month.

Earlier, representatives from more than 40 countries expressed concern over the growing spread of extremism, radical religious teachings and racial discrimination in various countries. At a meeting in Moscow, they warned that the situation could lead to catastrophic consequences.

Without naming anyone, Saif Khyber said that these people were taking advantage of the "compulsions of the Pashtun people".

In a note on social media platform X, he wrote that these people attend jirgas, assemblies and demonstrations and "carry out the mission entrusted to them”.

The Taliban official said that these individuals achieve “facilities, and false heroic titles" in exchange for being the Pakistan intelligence agency, the "ISI's agent”.

Saif Khyber said that "deceiving the people with unnecessary words and baseless criticism in exchange for practical action" is what ISI operatives do.

Khyber is the first Taliban official to make such accusations against Pakistan's Pashtun tribal jirga. The organisers of the Pashtun Jirga in Pakistan have not yet responded to the remarks.

The Taliban official's harsh remarks came after participants of the Pashtun Jirga in Khyber supported the right of Afghan girls and women to education and the formation of an inclusive government in the country.

The three-day Jirga of Pakistan's Pashtuns ended on Sunday with the issuance of the final statement of the meeting.

The tribal jirga officially called on the Pakistani army and militants in the Pashtun tribal areas to withdraw from these areas within the next two months.

Manzoor Pashteen, the leader of the Pashtun Protection Movement, read out the final statement of the National Justice Jirga in the presence of thousands of participants on Sunday evening local time.

In his speech, Pashteen called on the participants of the Pashtun Jirga to ask the Afghan Taliban to open schools to girls and form an inclusive government.

The Taliban representative accused some Afghans living in Pakistan of not respecting the principle of neutrality with "false feelings”.

The Taliban's Ministry of Refugees and Repatriation wrote in a statement on Sunday, October 13, that the Taliban's deputy chief of refugee affairs in Islamabad made the announcement during a meeting with a number of Afghans living in Pakistan.

According to the statement, Pakistani security agencies have recently arrested a number of Afghan refugees in Islamabad and Rawalpindi.
The Taliban did not provide details about the number of people detained.

However, Pakistan's Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi announced on October 10, 2024, that the recent protests in Islamabad involving Imran Khan's supporters in Islamabad, had the presence of Afghan citizens, and that 120 of them were arrested. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) has denied the allegations that Afghans are participating in the protests.

These centres were constructed with financial assistance from the European Union, but European officials have allegedly ignored the conditions within them.

The findings indicate that Türkiye, using resources and equipment provided by the EU, has deported hundreds of thousands of Afghan and Syrian refugees.

According to these reports, at least €213 million of EU funds were spent on the construction and refurbishment of 30 deportation centres in Türkiye. Refugees in these centres face overcrowding, unsanitary conditions, abuse, and torture.

Afghan and Syrian refugees are often coerced through violence and force into signing documents for their “voluntary” return.

These refugees have reported being beaten and held in cold rooms for up to 12 hours in the deportation centres. They claim that Turkish authorities ignored their basic rights.

The investigations also revealed that these refugees find it extremely difficult to contact a lawyer or family members.

Despite extensive evidence of human rights violations in Turkish deportation centres, senior EU officials have repeatedly overlooked the issue.