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☆ In this birthday party portrait, teenage girls celebrate in secret in Afghanistan
▼ + stars: | 2024-11-13 | by ( Jacqui Palumbo | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +6 min

CNN —The photograph could have been taken at any birthday party: three girls in dresses standing side-by-side in a living room, balloons and streamers strung up around an entryway. Hayeri and Cornet have met with some of the same girls at different events over the course of their work together, including this earlier birthday party in February. Over the course of the six months, Hayeri and Cornet repeatedly photographed the teenage girls in the birthday party portrait, as well as their extended circle of friends. “In this particular case, it was a 16-year-old’s birthday party for one of the girls,” Cornet said. “Resistance for Afghan women cannot mean to go on the street and protest, to be outspoken,” Hayeri said.

Persons: Kiana Hayeri, Mélissa Cornet, ”, Hayeri, Cornet, ” Hayeri, ” Cornet, “, Fondation Carmignac Cornet, Sirajuddin Haqqani, Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzada, “ She’s, They’ve, Melissa Organizations: CNN, Fondation, The New York Times Locations: Kabul, Afghanistan, Canadian, Paris, ”, —

☆ The Taliban publish vice laws that ban women’s voices and bare faces in public
▼ + stars: | 2024-08-23 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Ap-Live-Blog-Byline-Image.Png | The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

ISLAMABAD — Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have issued a ban on women’s voices and bare faces in public under new laws approved by the supreme leader in efforts to combat vice and promote virtue. The Taliban had set up a ministry for the “propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice” after seizing power in 2021. The ministry published its vice and virtue laws on Wednesday that cover aspects of everyday life such as public transportation, music, shaving and celebrations. They are set out in a 114-page, 35-article document seen by The Associated Press and are the first formal declaration of vice and virtue laws in Afghanistan since the takeover. It also says the elimination of vice involves prohibiting people from doing things forbidden by Islamic law.

Persons: Hibatullah Akhundzada, “, ”, Maulvi Abdul Ghafar Farooq, Fiona Frazer Organizations: Taliban, Associated Press Locations: ISLAMABAD —, Afghanistan

☆ Taliban celebrates three years in power as Afghans suffer hunger and repression
▼ + stars: | 2024-08-14 | by ( Https | Media-Cldnry.S-Nbcnews.Com Image Upload Newscms Ap-Live-Blog-Byline-Image.Png | The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

Decades of conflict and instability have left millions of Afghans on the brink of hunger and starvation. The Taliban celebrates the third anniversary of its takeover of Afghanistan, at Bagram Air Base, in Bagram, Parwan province. Ahmad Sahel Arman / AFP - Getty ImagesThe Bagram parade was the Taliban’s grandest and most defiant since regaining control of the country in August 2021. The audience of some 10,000 men included senior Taliban officials like Acting Defense Minister Mullah Yaqoob and Acting Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani. They say that Afghans, particularly women and girls, will suffer if there isn’t more diplomatic engagement with the Taliban.

Persons: —, ”, Maulvi Abdul Kabir, “, Ahmad Sahel Arman, Mullah Yaqoob, Sirajuddin Haqqani, Hibatullah Akhundzada, Ebrahim Noroozi Organizations: Taliban, Bagram, Islamic, Bagram Air Base, Getty, Acting, NATO Locations: U.S, Afghanistan, Bagram, Parwan province, Ahmad Sahel

☆ Driving With Mr. Gil: A Retiree Teaches Afghan Women the Rules of the Road
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-16 | by ( Miriam Jordan | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: 1 min

“Go, go, go” said her driving instructor, as she slowed down through an open intersection. Don’t stop.”Her teacher was Gil Howard, an 82-year-old retired professor who happened upon a second career as a driving instructor. In Modesto, Calif., he is the go-to teacher for women from Afghanistan, where driving is off limits for virtually all of them. In recent years, Mr. Howard has taught some 400 women in the 5,000-strong Afghan community in this part of California’s Central Valley. Gil,” as he is known in Modesto, more Afghan women likely drive in and around the city of about 220,000 than in all Afghanistan.

Persons: ”, Gil Howard, Howard, Mr, Gil Locations: Modesto, Calif, Afghanistan, Central Valley

REUTERS/Ali Khara/File Photo Acquire Licensing RightsKABUL, Oct 14 (Reuters) - The Taliban will attend China's Belt and Road Forum next week, a spokesman said on Saturday, underscoring Beijing's growing official ties with the administration, despite its lack of formal recognition by any government. Taliban officials and ministers have at times travelled to regional meetings, mostly those focussed on Afghanistan, but the Belt and Road Forum is among the highest-profile multilateral summits it has been invited to attend. China has been in talks with the Taliban over plans, begun under the previous foreign-backed government, over a possible huge copper mine in eastern Afghanistan. Officials from China, the Taliban and neighbouring Pakistan said in May they would like Belt and Road to include Afghanistan and for the flagship China Pakistan Economic Corridor to be extended across the border to Afghanistan. China has boosted engagement with the Taliban, becoming the first country to appoint an ambassador to Kabul since the Taliban took power, and invested in mining projects.

Persons: Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, Wang Yu, Ali Khara, Xi, Haji Nooruddin Azizi, Akhundzada Abdul Salam Jawad, Azizi, Akhundzada, Mohammad Yunus Yawar, Charlotte, Joe Cash, William Mallard Organizations: Afghan, REUTERS, Rights, China Pakistan Economic, Taliban, Thomson Locations: China, Islamic Emirate, Afghanistan, Kabul, Rights KABUL, Beijing, Pakistan, China Pakistan, Charlotte Greenfield, Islamabad

☆ UN says Taliban carried out hundreds of extrajudicial killings after seizing power
▼ + stars: | 2023-08-23 | by ( Heather Chen | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +5 min

CNN —Taliban fighters have committed hundreds of extrajudicial killings since taking power in Afghanistan in 2021, despite a “general amnesty” meant to protect the previous government, according to the United Nations. International rights groups and bodies like the UN have accused the Taliban of unwinding progress in protecting human rights since seizing power. In interviews conducted with UN officials, individuals recounted beatings with pipes, cables, verbal threats and abuse at the hands of Taliban security force members. “Former government and security officials are entitled to the same human rights protections as all Afghans.”Turk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, called on the Taliban to punish offenders. “Afghans were able to regain their country, freedom, government and will,” Taliban deputy spokesperson Bilal Karimi previously told CNN.

Persons: “, ”, Volker Turk, Abdul Khaliq, ’, Alia Azizi, hasn’t, UNAMA, ” Turk, Amir al, Hibatullah Akhundzada, Bilal Karimi, Roza Otunbayeva, ” Otunbayeva Organizations: CNN, Taliban, United Nations, United Nations Assistance, Afghan National Army, police, National Directorate of Security, UN, Human Rights, NATO, Taliban’s Locations: Afghanistan, Kabul, Herat, Emirate

☆ Taliban official letter reinforces bar of female aid staff in southern Kandahar
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-23 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

KABUL, June 23 (Reuters) - Taliban authorities in Afghanistan's Kandahar province ordered female aid workers this week to stop work on a refugee project, according to an official letter, reinforcing rules against women working despite exemptions sought by some organisations. The letter underscored the uncertainty of the operating environment in Afghanistan for aid agencies who say they intend to stay and deliver aid during a humanitarian crisis but seek exemptions to let female staff work, to reach female beneficiaries and avoid breaching UN charter principles. The Taliban administration signalled in January it would work on a set of written guidelines that could allow aid groups to operate with female staff in some cases, but it has not yet done so. The Norwegian Refugee Council, an international NGO, in May said it had received exemptions for many of its operations in Kandahar and was resuming work with female staff. The Taliban's restrictions on women aid workers and access to education have been widely criticized by the international community.

Persons: Haibatullah Akhundzada, Charlotte Greenfield, Mohammad Yunus Yawar, Peter Graff Organizations: Reuters, Department of Refugees, United Nations, Norwegian Refugee Council, NRC, Diplomats, Thomson Locations: KABUL, Afghanistan's Kandahar, Kandahar, Spin, Pakistan, Afghanistan, United States

☆ Opinion: A blistering indictment of the Trump-Biden legacy in Afghanistan
▼ + stars: | 2023-06-09 | by ( Peter Bergen | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +7 min

The withdrawal agreement was supposed to be predicated on the Taliban negotiating with the elected Afghan government about some kind of power-sharing arrangement and cutting their ties to terrorist groups like al Qaeda. Zawahiri was living in Kabul with the “awareness” of Taliban officials, according to a Biden senior administration official. Worrisomely, al Qaeda is “covertly rebuilding its external operations capability,” according to the UN, i.e., its ability to launch attacks outside of Afghanistan. Of these, an astonishing 35 hold cabinet-level positions in the de facto Afghan government, according to the report. In sum, “debacle” seems almost too kind a word to describe the Trump-Biden legacy in Afghanistan.

Persons: Peter Bergen, Donald Trump’s, Joe Biden, Biden, Zalmay Khalilzad, “, al Qaeda, Ayman al Zawahiri, Zawahiri, Hibatullah Akhundzada, Edmund Fitton, Brown, ”, Fitton Organizations: New, Arizona State University, Apple, Spotify, CNN, United, US, Afghan, Biden, Trump, US House Foreign Affairs Committee, Taliban, UN, ISIS, Pakistan, Twitter, “, NATO Locations: New America, United Nations, Afghanistan, al Qaeda, United States, Qaeda, Kabul, Pakistani, Afghan, Kandahar, America

☆ Qatar’s prime minister met with top Taliban leader in Afghanistan earlier this month, sources say
▼ + stars: | 2023-05-31 | by ( Alex Marquardt | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +1 min

CNN —Qatar’s prime minister met secretly with the Taliban’s top leader earlier this month in Afghanistan, two sources familiar with the meeting confirmed to CNN. The meeting happened in the southern city of Kandahar on May 12, between the Taliban Supreme Leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada and Qatar’s Prime Minister Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani. The meeting, first reported by Reuters, is believed to be the first between Akhundzada and a foreign leader. Despite American warnings to the Taliban not harbor terrorists, Al Qaeda’s leader Ayman al-Zawahiri took up residence in Kabul before being killed in a US drone strike last July. Qatar serves as the US protecting power in Afghanistan, where it does not have a diplomatic presence.

Persons: CNN —, Haibatullah, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim, Biden, Antony Blinken, Qatar’s, ”, Qatar’s Al Jazeera, Thani, Al Qaeda’s, Ayman al, Zawahiri Organizations: CNN, Taliban, Qatar’s, Reuters, State Department, ” CNN, US State Department, Qatari Embassy, US Locations: Afghanistan, Kandahar, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al, Thani, Qatar, Washington, Al, Doha, Kabul, Kabul –

☆ Taliban Leader Faces Blowback Over Girls’ School Ban—From His Own Movement
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( Saeed Shah | Photographs Elise Blanchard For The Wall Street Journal | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

KABUL—A year ago, the Taliban’s supreme leader revived the Taliban’s signature policy from the 1990s and banned girls from attending secondary school. Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada is discovering that it is one thing to issue a fiat, and quite another to enforce it in an Afghanistan that has changed dramatically since the Taliban last ruled. The reclusive leader is coming under intense pressure even from within his own movement to reverse it, a clash that is spilling into the open as the new school year begins this week.

☆ Blast in Afghanistan's northern Balkh province kills one, injures 5
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

KABUL, March 11 (Reuters) - A blast hit the capital of Afghanistan's northern Balkh province on Saturday, police said, killing one person and wounding five a few days after the death of the province's governor in an explosion claimed by Islamic State. "A blast has taken placed in the second police district of Balkh," said Mohamad Asif Waziri, Balkh's police spokesperson. A journalist based in Balkh, Mohammad Fardin Nowrozi, told Reuters he and other journalists were injured in the explosion, but did not provide further details. Taliban authorities were already investigating the explosion that killed the provincial governor, Mawlawi Mohammad Dawood Muzamil, and two others at his office on Thursday. The governor of Afghanistan's southern province of Kandahar will temporarily run Balkh, his spokesman Haji Zaid told Reuters, until Supreme Spiritual Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada selects a new governor for the northern province, an important trade hub with Central Asia.

☆ Blast at Afghanistan journalist event kills at least one, injures eight
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-11 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

KABUL, March 11 (Reuters) - A blast hit a cultural centre during an event for journalists in northern Afghanistan on Saturday, killing at least one person and wounding eight, according to authorities and journalists, a few days after the province's governor died in an explosion claimed by Islamic State. Takor added that five journalists and three children were among the injured and a security guard was killed. Sajad Mosawi, a journalist in Balkh who was injured in the blast, said it had torn through the centre during an event to celebrate journalists. Taliban authorities were already investigating the explosion that killed provincial governor Mawlawi Mohammad Dawood Muzamil and two others at his office on Thursday. Reporting by Mohammad Yunus Yawar; Writing by Charlotte Greenfield; Editing by William Mallard and Mark PotterOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

He added that a government committee was looking into adding secular subjects to madrasas alongside religious study, a development that hasn't been previously reported. Other students and teachers said Islamic education played an important role in their lives, though they hoped to be able to study secular subjects too. He didn't elaborate on the government's plans for religious schools. Reuters was unable to determine the current number of madrasas, and Taliban authorities have not provided figures. "There's deep-seated mistrust of the formal education sector, despite the fact that it too incorporates Islamic education."

☆ Taliban carry out first public execution since Afghan takeover
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-08 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

ISLAMABAD — The Taliban authorities on Wednesday executed an Afghan convicted of killing another man, the first public execution since the former insurgents took over Afghanistan last year, a spokesman said. The execution, carried out with an assault rifle by the victim’s father, took place in western Farah province before hundreds of spectators and many top Taliban officials, according to Zabihullah Mujahid, the top Taliban government spokesman. The executed man, identified as Tajmir from Herat province, was convicted of killing another man five years ago and stealing his motorcycle and mobile phone. Taliban security forces had arrested Tajmir after the victim’s family accused him of the crime, said a statement from Mujahid, the spokesman. During the previous Taliban rule of the country in the late 1990s, the group carried out public executions, floggings and stoning of those convicted of crimes in Taliban courts.

☆ Taliban replaces Afghan acting education minister in reshuffle
▼ + stars: | 2022-09-20 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

REUTERS/Ali KharaKABUL, Sept 20 (Reuters) - The Taliban's supreme leader issued an order on Tuesday announcing a reshuffle of several national and provincial positions, including replacing the acting education minister. Acting education minister Noorullah Munir would be replaced in the role by the head of Kandahar's provincial council, Maulvi Habibullah Agha. Afghanistan's education system has been in the spotlight since the Taliban took over the country just over a year ago. The group had largely banned education of girls when last in power two decades ago but had said its policies had changed. Taliban and diplomatic sources told Reuters that last week several ministers had gathered in Kandahar for a cabinet meeting led by the supreme leader.

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