Taliban Transfers Hundreds Of Prisoners Accused Of Collaborating With NRF To Bagram

The organisation called on the Taliban's Ministry of Information and Culture to end the "violation of the right to access information" in Afghanistan.

RSF on Friday (November 15) announced that the reopening of these media outlets was conditional on compliance with "repressive" rules, including not broadcasting music and not entertaining calls from women members of the audience.

"Since returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban has brutally suppressed the Afghan media, stifled independent voices and plunged the country into a silence of fear," said Célia Mercier, head of RSF's South Asia unit.

The RSF official also described the Taliban's crackdown on the media as worrying and called on the group's officials to stop shutting down the media under various pretexts and respect the right to access information.

The Taliban has exerted enormous pressure on Afghanistan's local media in their efforts to enforce the Law on the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which considers women's voices to be "awrah" and bans the broadcast of images of living beings.

The Afghanistan Journalists Centre (AFJC) reported last week that the Taliban had shut down three local radio stations in Khost province in a week for "playing music in the background of programmes" and "call from women" in social programmes.

The organisation later reported that the Taliban had reopened Radio Zhman and Radio Gharghasht in Khost after obtaining a written commitment not to play music and to abide by the group's restrictions.

Radio Lawang has remained inactive until now.

German media outlets wrote that these refugees were former colleagues of German forces in Afghanistan and were working as translators or drivers.

According to the details provided, these refugees fled after the withdrawal of NATO from Afghanistan and took refuge in Pakistan.

It has been said that there are women among the asylum seekers who were transferred to Germany and they arrived at Erfurt airport in Germany on Thursday evening.

As soon as they arrived, the Afghan refugees were welcomed by the staff of the German Federal Office for Migration and Refugees.

After the collapse of the previous government in Afghanistan, the German federal government had committed to move 1,000 at-risk Afghans to their country every month. However, the process of transferring Afghans at-risk has been delayed a lot.

Reports show that the German Foreign Ministry had accepted the request of a number of Afghans in danger, but after several security incidents in the country, it sent emails to Afghan immigrants in Pakistan to inform them of the rejection of many of their requests.

According to the announcement of the German Ministry of Interior, there are currently about three thousand Afghans at risk in Pakistan waiting to be accepted by Germany.

When asked whether the government had kept its promises to Afghans at risk, Germany's Interior Minister Nancy Faeser said that the number of refugees transferred was lower than promised. Faeser cited the reason for this delay as more security checks.

The politician was killed on Thursday (November 14) in a gun battle near the Afghan border in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

In a statement posted on Telegram on Friday, ISIS-K claimed responsibility for the attack and stressed on the continuation of the attacks.

ISIS-K has continuously attacked political parties and even Islamist parties in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other countries in the region.

According to local police, Sufi Hameed, the regional head of the Jamaat-e-Islami party, was leaving a mosque in his neighbourhood when two armed men on a motorcycle attacked and shot at him.

Police also announced that the attackers managed to escape and that investigations are ongoing in the incident. It has been said that some residents of the area tried to take Sufi Hameed to the hospital, but he died on the way.

In the Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Islamist and separatist groups frequently attack Pakistani security forces and government officials.

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is one of the groups that has challenged the security of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Islamabad has always accused the Afghan Taliban of cooperating with the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and providing sanctuary to the group. Pakistani officials say that the TTP received its military training in Afghanistan and follows the same ideology as the Kabul Taliban. A claim denied by the Afghan Taliban.

However, Pakistani security officials have said that in the area where the political leader was assassinated, ISIS is "more active" than the Pakistani Taliban.

President-elect Donald Trump had promised during his election campaigns that he would fire the officials involved in the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Sabrina Singh, deputy spokeswoman for the Pentagon, on Thursday, October 13, at a press conference, rejected the actions to remove the people involved in the "confused" withdrawal of American forces from Afghanistan and said that the Pentagon had already conducted its own investigation into what happened in Afghanistan.

Singh said that the Pentagon had also completed its investigation into the attack on the Kabul airport in August 2021 earlier this year.

Sabrina Singh expressed ignorance about the new investigation about the departure from Afghanistan and the attack on the Kabul airport and said, "I am not aware of any other investigation that is currently underway in the US Department of Defence."

This official of the US Defence Ministry said that she does not intend to comment on the statements of Donald Trump, the president-elect of the US, regarding the dismissal of the officials involved in the withdrawal from Afghanistan.

She also did not provide specific statistics in response to Afghanistan International's reporter's question about the value of weapons left by the United States of America in the hands of the Taliban and said, "You can search for published information in this regard."

Donald Trump had previously announced the value of military weapons left by America in Afghanistan at 85 billion dollars.

Previously, Donald Trump had announced during his election campaign that in case of victory, the military officials who managed the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan would be asked to resign. Trump said, "I want their immediate resignation."

Trump also said before the US election, “If I were the president, the tragedy in Afghanistan would never have happened." He added that if he was the president, he would have kept the Bagram base, but now this base is in the possession of China.

Although there is still about a month left until Donald Trump enters the White House, he has pledged to investigate the "chaotic withdrawal" of American troops from Afghanistan and remove those responsible from the US government.

Some locals said that having songs or videos on cellphones could lead to a day in jail.

Local sources told the Pashto section of Afghanistan International on Thursday that the ombudsmen holding meetings three days in a week in Khakrez, Boldak, Shawlikot and Zhari Miwand districts about their new laws and bring people to the meetings by force.

A resident of Kandahar's Miwand district told Afghanistan International that in these meetings people are advised to follow Sharia law, not listen to music and obey the Taliban.

Ahmadullah, a resident of Kandahar's Khakrez district, said that the Taliban advises them to conform to Sharia law, pray on time and accept the group's orders.

At the same time, some people of the mentioned districts complain about the inspection of private information in their mobile phones and the violent treatment by the Taliban forces.

They claimed that the Taliban imprisons young people for a day after checking their cell phones if they find songs or videos on it.

This action of the Taliban is in conflict with the request of Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesman of the Taliban, about not checking people's mobile phones and personal information and content.

Taliban holds meetings with people to explain the law. Last week, the representatives of the Ministry of Education, Information and Culture and the governors of the five provinces of the Taliban held a meeting in Kandahar regarding the promotion of the new law of vice and virtue.