Russia Honours Afghan Businessman

The ministry said on Thursday that the men had been arrested on charges of extramarital affairs and "promoting moral corruption".

The Taliban's Ministry of Virtue reported on Thursday, that the arrested individuals have been referred to judicial authorities after thorough investigation.

Earlier, on October 30, the ministry announced the arrest of seven people in Kabul on charges of "moral corruption”.

The Taliban's Law for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has given extensive powers to the group's Ministry of Virtue, whose officials also have the right to arrest individuals.

"Over time, I realised that supporters of women's education have remained silent out of fear [of the Taliban] or have agreed to this repression," one woman told the UN.

The report, released on Wednesday, is a joint survey by UNAMA, UN Women and the UN Migration Agency, which interviewed 776 women in 34 provinces of Afghanistan.

"Nearly half (47 percent) of these women feel that the community support for primary education for girls has declined, and this figure rises to 65 percent for secondary education for girls," the United Nations wrote in its report.

The women interviewed "stated that they feel a change in society's attitude towards women's rights, which stems from the fear of punishment from the ruling authorities and the strengthening of patriarchal norms throughout the country”.

The Taliban has been isolated internationally due to the ban on girls' education, but they have been able to reduce the importance of modern primary education for girls in the eyes of families. The United Nations says that due to the ban on girls' education in secondary and high school levels, many families feel that primary education is not beneficial for their daughters.

Also, some families have coped with this situation and want their daughters to learn a trade, go to religious school, or get married. The United Nations has said that due to the ban on education, early marriage of girls has increased in Afghanistan.

However, the United Nations says a number of families have continued to educate their daughters in secret.

‘Exclusion from society’

In the new study, 70 percent of women said that they had been deprived of going to public places such as parks and health centres in the past 12 months.

The Taliban has banned women from entering recreational areas and historical sites, they said, despite being accompanied by a male relative. Women said that Taliban agents tell them that these places are only for men.

Meanwhile, 69 percent of women said that they did not feel safe when they left the house. This feeling has caused them to isolate themselves from society and suffer from psychological problems such as depression.

The Taliban insists that they have made society safe for Afghan women, but at the same time, they call on women not to leave the house for no reason. It seems that the Taliban's violent treatment of women, mainly due to the type of clothing and the lack of a male companion, has exacerbated women's sense of insecurity on the streets.

‘Closed Door of Justice’

The report of three UN agencies shows that women have been deprived of the support and services of legal and justice authorities in Afghanistan and are not able to go to these institutions due to gender barriers.

Nearly 80 percent of the women interviewed told the organisation that Taliban government agents refuse to investigate their legal cases. Meanwhile, 79 percent of Afghan women have not referred to any official judicial institution in the past year to resolve their legal disputes and problems.

In the first step, they said that the Taliban do not allow women to go to courts or offices of justices without a male guardian, and that the group's administrations close or ignore their cases without investigation due to gender discrimination.

‘Women's Demands’

These social restrictions for women have led 57 percent of women respondents to describe their economic situation as worse than in the past. In their view, restrictions, including having a mahram, have kept them out of the economy.

They called on the Taliban to open girls' schools at all levels, respect international human rights standards, including women's rights, and remove obstacles to women's work, including the mandatory mahram.

The women told the United Nations that the world should increase pressure on the Taliban to realise women's rights, especially women's right to education and work.

Posting a video of the persecution of Afghan refugees in the country, he said that such behaviour is "unjustifiable" and "painful". According to the video, a number of Iranian men harass and use violence against Afghan women.

Masoud Pezeshkian's aide wrote on the social media network X on Wednesday, "The ugly racist acts towards immigrants are unjustifiable and are not compatible with Iranian culture and spirit. Just as it saddens us to see an Iranian girl suffering, it should also cause us pain and regret to see Afghan girls being slapped.”

Rabiei stressed that "the issue of refugees should only be addressed and resolved within a logical, planned and policy-oriented framework”.

He also stressed on the need to preserve the human dignity of Afghan refugees, saying, "Human dignity must be preserved for everyone, anywhere in the world."

Over the past few months, in addition to physical violence against migrants, there has been a campaign of anti-Afghan and deportation of migrants on social media in Iran.

With the advent of Iran's new government, living conditions have become more difficult for immigrants. Iran plans to deport hundreds of thousands of undocumented migrants by the end of this year. This process is accompanied by arrests, harassment and violence by government agents and ordinary citizens against Afghan refugees.

To discourage immigrants from coming to Iran, the Iranian government has increased restrictions on work and life in Iran. The government has banned the entry of Afghan refugees into some cities and provinces and warned employers against hiring them.

Authorities have threatened that hiring Afghan refugees could lead to up to a year in prison. Also, in some areas, immigrants are denied the right to rent a house.

So far, two dead and 34 wounded individuals have been transferred to the country after the incident which involved gunfire and explosions on the Iran-Afghanistan border.

Hamdullah Fitrat, the Taliban's deputy spokesman, wrote in a statement on Thursday that Ibrahim Sadr, the group's deputy interior minister, was responsible for leading the investigation into the shooting of Afghan refugees.

The Taliban said that "explosions and shootings" against Afghan refugees took place in the Kalgan Valley area on Iranian soil.

The statement said that a number of other victims of the incident are currently in Iran and Pakistan, and the Taliban's investigative team is seeking to transfer them to Afghanistan.

The Taliban has said that the investigation into the shooting of Afghan migrants by Iranian border guards has not been completed and that further details of the investigation will be published soon.

Haalvsh, a human rights organisation that reports on Sistan and Baluchestan news, published reports regarding the shooting of Afghan migrants for the first time.

The organisation wrote that on Sunday evening, October 13, Iranian border forces opened fire on a group of 300 Afghan migrants who were trying to enter Iran in the Kalgan Saravan area.

According to the report, the incident left "dozens" dead and wounded.
Saravan County is located in Sistan and Baluchestan province and borders Pakistan.

Following the publication of these reports, Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan, and the UNAMA mission in Afghanistan, called for an investigation into the reports. In a statement, UNAMA said that the incident took place on October 13.

However, Iranian officials denied the report. Hassan Kazemi Qomi, the Iranian president's special representative for Afghanistan affairs, also said that these reports are not true.

In recent days, Halvash reported that a number of Afghan refugees, including the six wounded in the incident who were targeted by gunfire, have been transferred to Nimroz province.

This is not the first time that Iranian forces have opened fire on Afghan refugees at the border. Earlier, Amnesty International said in a report that Afghan migrants who want to go to safe countries through Iran and Turkiye have been targeted by Iranian and Turkish border forces.

In a report titled "We Are Not Treated Like Human Beings", the organisation said that migrants, including women and children, had been shot "mostly at the Iranian border" when climbing the border fence or crawling under fences.

Bennett said that Canada should emphasise on its positions to improve human rights, especially women's rights, in order to normalise relations with the Taliban.

Richard Bennett, the United Nations special rapporteur on human rights, is on a six-day visit to Canada to review the human rights crisis in Afghanistan.

He wrote in a note on the social media network X that during the trip, he met with a number of Afghan citizens, including refugees, activists, and journalists in Toronto and Ottawa.

"I heard from young women and ethnic minorities such as Hazaras, Uzbeks and Turkmens about the brutal treatment they face in the absence of a coherent international strategy to address the dire human rights situation in Afghanistan," said Bennett.

The United Nations also said in a statement that Bennett thanked the Canadian government for the important steps it has taken to hold the Taliban accountable to its international obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.

According to the statement, the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights thanked Canada for accepting 50,000 Afghans since August 2021 and emphasised on the continuation of this support.

Richard Bennett called on Canada to support at-risk Afghans seeking asylum. "I call on Canada to abide by its commitments to rescue programmes and to meet basic humanitarian needs, while ensuring that the principle of avoiding support for terrorist organisations is respected," he said.