Taliban "Prevented Students From Travelling To Russia" For Second Year In A Row

Speaking at a meeting in Minsk on Friday, January 17, he said that dozens of countries want to have economic cooperation with Belarus, but it is hard to say that Belarus can meet their demands, Belarusian news agencies reported.

At the same time, Lukashenko added that Belarus's interests and priorities should be at the core of cooperation with other countries.

These statements come as Belarusian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Lukashevich visited Kabul last week and met with Taliban officials.

The Taliban's Foreign Ministry said in a statement on Sunday, January 12, that Sergei Lukashevich and Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, the Taliban's deputy foreign minister, met and discussed political and economic cooperation.

Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai described the visit of the Belarusian official to Kabul as an important development in Belarusian-Afghan relations and the beginning of long-term cooperation.

The Taliban's deputy foreign ministry spokesman also announced that Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai and Sergei Lukashevich agreed that the technical teams of both sides would hold their talks in Kabul and Minsk.

In a statement, the organisation emphasised that the Afghanistan national cricket team should remain sanctioned until women are allowed to access education and participate in sports. The organisation noted that the Afghanistan Cricket Board is under the control of the Taliban.

According to the BBC, Heather Barr, the head of the women's section of Human Rights Watch, said that according to the International Cricket Council's anti-discrimination policy, all people should be able to play cricket without discrimination and regardless of their gender, but the Taliban government has deprived Afghan women of this right.

In a statement issued by Human Rights Watch, it referred to various decrees of the Taliban government that include various women's rights, including "work, education, and sports," which the Taliban has deprived of women.

Countries that are members of the International Cricket Council (ICC), of which Afghanistan is one of them, are also required to have a women's cricket team, but even though Afghan women do not have the right to play sports and cricket, Afghanistan retains its membership in the ICC and participates in international competitions.

Pakistani police have detained hundreds of Afghan refugees in the cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad in recent days and deported a number of them.

Amnesty International on Friday, January 17, called on the Pakistani government to repeal its new policy of requiring additional documents, such as a No Objection Certificate (NOC), to stay in Islamabad.

The organisation said that Pakistan's new order is putting vulnerable and at-risk Afghan groups in a bad situation. "The New Year has been marked by fear and anxiety for Afghan refugees in Islamabad, as police launched night-time raids, harassing and arbitrarily detaining hundreds of Afghan refugees," the organisation said in a statement.

For the past two weeks, Pakistani police have been going from street to street and house to house in the cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi in search of Afghan migrants, arresting undocumented migrants and, in a number of cases, even migrants with visas.

Among the detainees are women and children.

According to statistics from the Taliban embassy in Islamabad, Islamabad police arrested about 800 Afghan refugees in the first week alone.

During its two-day visit, the delegation is scheduled to meet and discuss with the Iranian Minister of Justice, the head of the Extradition Committee for Convicts, and other high-ranking officials of the Islamic Republic.

The Taliban’s Supreme Court said that the purpose of this trip is to strengthen judicial cooperation, ensure the rights of Afghan prisoners in Iran, seek an alternative way for Afghans sentenced to death in Iran, and pursue the issue of the extradition of prisoners.

According to the Human Rights Organisation Hengaw, the Islamic Republic of Iran executed at least 74 Afghan prisoners in 2024.

Earlier, a delegation from the Iranian Ministry of Justice had traveled to Kabul. Following these talks, it was agreed that Afghan prisoners would be transferred from Iran to Afghanistan to serve their sentences.

According to this survey, in Afghanistan under Taliban control, more than 84 percent of citizens also do not have access to health services.

Research by Lawrence Technological University researchers also showed that 85 percent of Afghans have been "threatened with violence”.

According to the university, about 800 Afghans, 94 percent of whom were men, participated in the survey and shared their views on humanitarian aid, restrictions on freedom of expression and women's rights, widespread malnutrition, and high unemployment rates.

Participants were between 18 and 29 years old.

The researchers who conducted the survey said about the current situation in Afghanistan, "The bleak situation in the country has become so severe that almost every person, regardless of their background, has been negatively affected."

According to the survey, 72 percent of participants also said that one or more of their family members were killed or displaced from the country after the Taliban returned.

The survey also showed that nearly nine out of every 10 Afghans have had their quality of life reduced due to high levels of social and psychological stress.

The survey also reported high levels of psychological stress among Afghans.

After the Taliban returned, most citizens in Afghanistan under the group's control rely on humanitarian aid, and millions more have migrated due to security threats and widespread poverty.