Month: September 2021

A former Afghan policeman who says he is out of work under the new Taliban government is one of thousands of Afghans who have fled over the border to Iran in recent weeks.

Abdul Ahad, a 22-year-old former officer, told VOA that he is leaving the country because he “has no hope for a future” in Afghanistan.

“I lost my job, and I am forced to leave (Afghanistan) searching for a job so I can feed my family,” said Ahad, who worked for four years as a policeman in western Farah province. “I do not know what I will be doing in Iran, but at least I will be able to find a job there, earn some money and send it back to my family.” 

Ahad is far from alone. Multiple sources and eyewitnesses in the border city of Zaranj, the capital of southwestern Nimruz province, have confirmed to VOA that after the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, thousands of Afghans, fearing economic hardships and political persecution under the Taliban, are fleeing over the border to Iran.

An International Organization for Migration (IOM) official in Afghanistan told RFE/RL in July that up to 1.5 million Afghans could flee west in 2021 in search of “protection, safety, and jobs.”

Like many others on the road, Ahad is the breadwinner of his joint family, including his wife and son, parents and three younger brothers. 

As a policeman, Ahad said that he was paid $150 (13,000 AFN) a month, which was his only income “to feed my family, but now without an income, what would my family eat.”

The World Food Program (WFP) said Thursday that 95% of Afghan families do not have enough food.

“Due to the combined effects of unemployment, a drop in the value of the local currency and a rise in prices . . . only 10 percent of families headed by someone with a secondary or university education can afford sufficient food.” said WFP, in a press release.

Fear of Reprisal 

Ahad added that many of his former colleagues in the Afghan security forces had already left for Iran. “Some left because of economic problems, but others fled fearing the Taliban’s reprisal.” 

The Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan last month, pledged amnesty for government officials, but many Afghans who worked for the government remain fearful.

Human Rights Watch alleges the militant group has carried out extrajudicial killings of former government officials and security personnel.

Ahad said that he has been in Zaranj for the past 20 days.

“The route via Pakistan has been shut for the past few days. Now, we have to go to Chahar Burjak district and cross the fence at the Afghan-Iran border,” he said. “They [the smugglers] tell me that it is risky, but we take the risk because we do not have any option.”

‘Taking Risks’ 

Mohmmad Agha, who transports refugees and migrants to the border area with Pakistan, said that because the routes through Pakistan are shut, people cross the fence, overlooked by Iranian security towers.

“People take risks. Some are shot when they try crossing the fence, or caught inside Iran and then deported,” said Mohmmad Agha, adding that, “I have personally seen people shot, and dead bodies are brought to Afghanistan.”

He said that in recent weeks, most of the people coming to Zaranj to leave for Iran are from Afghanistan’s north.

“They are from Badakhshan, Takhar, Jawzjan and other northern provinces. Many of them are former government security personnel and officers,” Agha said.

He said Afghan migrants and refugees would go to Iran and “some will stay there,” and others would go to Turkey, and from there “they will try to go to Europe.”

Last week, Turkey warned of a new wave of Afghan refugees.

The Turkish government said last week that it cannot host more refugees and called on the international community to address the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan so that Afghans do not flee their country.

Mehrab, a local shopkeeper in Zaranj city, told VOA that the number of those coming to his city on their way to Iran, has increased ‘exponentially’ after the Taliban’s takeover.

He said that people are taking dangerous routes to leave the country.

“Smugglers usually transport Afghan migrants and refugees to the Chahar Burjak district (about 90 miles south of Zaranj), then to Pakistan, and from there to Iran,” said Mehrab, who goes by his first name, as many other Afghans. 

Thousands Flee 

Mehrab said people are waiting in Zaranj for the crossing routes to Pakistan to be opened so they can go to Iran. 

“There is no space in the hotels. They (Afghan refugees and migrants) sleep on the streets and in front of shops and in garages,” said Mehrab. “Unlike in the past that only young Afghans would go to Iran, there are many families leaving the country.” 

He added that before the closure of the crossing points to Pakistan and after the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, around 600 to 700 pickup trucks, each with some 20 people, would leave daily to Iran.

In videos obtained by VOA last week, a caravan of hundreds of pickup trucks, packed with men are seen departing from Zaranj city. VOA cannot independently verify the accuracy of the videos and pictures.

In a written response, David Preux, IOM emergency coordinator, said it is difficult to know how many Afghans are crossing to the neighboring countries.

“It is difficult at this point to provide accurate data on crossings into neighboring countries due to operational and security challenges,” said Preux.

IOM, however, said in July, that there was a 30 to 40% increase in the number of people leaving Afghanistan than in the previous month.

 
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Late last month, Muhammad Iqbal Mengal traveled from Pakistan to Afghanistan to report on the Taliban takeover. But just a few days after arriving in Kabul, the journalist and his colleague were detained.

Members of the Taliban held Mengal and photojournalist Shehzad Ahmed for more than 10 days. The pair, who work for the Pakistani broadcaster 92 News, were released after the Pakistan embassy and journalism organizations intervened.

In an interview with VOA’s Urdu Service, Mengal described how Taliban fighters tied him and Ahmed up, before blindfolding and questioning them.

“They kept asking if we are spies and where did we come from?” Mengal said.  

The journalists, who are based in the Khuzdar district of Balochistan in Pakistan, arrived in the Afghan border area of Spin Boldak on August 18—three days after the Taliban took control of the country’s capital.

“I wanted to cover the ground realities. I wanted the world to know what’s happening on the ground in Afghanistan and speak to [local] people,” Mengal said.  

He and Ahmed reported from Kandahar and Herat before heading to Kabul.

On August 28, the journalists were reporting on the aftermath of the suicide bombing at Kabul airport. But when they tried to visit the emergency room of a city hospital, members of the Taliban blocked them.  

“They said, we can’t enter the hospital or cover the outside scenes because upper leadership doesn’t allow it,” he said.

The journalists left the hospital but Mengal said they got lost and so approached a Taliban checkpoint for help.  

Mengal said the Taliban fighters asked the journalists to come to a nearby office. But, he said, “They found us suspicious and took our mobile phones away. They started to search us and found Pakistani ID cards on us which made them more suspicious.”

After that, the journalists had their hands tied, were blindfolded and taken away for investigation.  

At least 14 journalists have been detained briefly by the Taliban since August 15, according to media watchdog the Committee to Protect Journalists. Some of those detained said they were beaten.  

The arrests have cast doubt on Taliban promises that media will be allowed to operate freely, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator Steven Butler said in a statement.  

“We urge the Taliban to live up to those earlier promises, to stop beating and detaining reporters doing their job, and allow the media to work freely without fear of reprisal,” Butler said.

A Taliban spokesperson has said the beatings will be investigated.

Many of the arrests took place as media covered protests by women calling for their rights to be protected.

The spokesperson for the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights has also called on Taliban to allow Afghans to exercise their rights.  

In a September 10 statement, the spokesperson called on the group “to immediately cease the use of force toward, and the arbitrary detention of, those exercising their right to peaceful assembly and the journalists covering the protests.”

Mengal and Ahmed of 92 News were finally released on September 9 without charge.  

“Our [news] channel, friends, and family even the embassy in Kabul and journalist organizations, all came together to help us and that’s how we got rescued,” Mengal said.

This story originated in VOA’s Urdu Service.
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Pakistan says it has conveyed to the United States that while Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers should be held to their commitments, the world has “a moral obligation” to collectively work to help the Afghan people deal with a severe humanitarian and economic crisis in the war-ravaged country.

Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi delivered the message Thursday in his meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, when they discussed the way forward in Afghanistan, said an official statement issued in Islamabad. The discussions took place in New York on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly.

Qureshi “hoped that the world would not repeat the mistake of disengaging with Afghanistan,” according to the statement.  

The U.S. State Department said Blinken stressed “the importance of coordinating our diplomatic engagement and facilitating the departure of those wishing to leave Afghanistan” in his talks with Qureshi.  

The Taliban swept through Afghanistan in August, after Washington and Western allies withdrew their troops in line with U.S. President Joe Biden’s orders that there was no point in extending America’s longest war beyond 20 years.  

The Islamist movement’s return to power prompted the Biden administration to swiftly block billions of dollars held in U.S. reserves for Kabul, while the World Bank and International Monetary Fund both halted Afghanistan’s access to crucial funding amid worries about the fate of Afghan basic human rights under Taliban rule.

Blinken told reporters Thursday the Afghan issue was the focus of his multilateral and bilateral meetings, including with counterparts from Russia and China. He said the Taliban continue to seek legitimacy and international support for their rule in Kabul, saying the world is united on how to deal with Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

“I think there is very strong unity of approach and unity of purpose… again, the Taliban says that it seeks legitimacy, that it seeks support from the international community; the relationship that it has with the international community is going to be defined by the actions it takes. That’s what we’re looking for,” Blinken stressed.  

He reiterated U.S. priorities for the Islamist group, including allowing Afghans and foreign nationals to leave the country, respecting human rights, particularly for women, girls and minorities, preventing terrorist groups from using Afghanistan to threaten other countries, and forming a “genuinely inclusive government” that can reflect aspirations of the Afghan people.

The Taliban have dismissed criticism of their male-only interim cabinet, saying it represents all Afghan ethnicities and it promised to “very soon” bring women on board.

“The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (the Taliban) has writ all over the country and enjoy grassroots support. We truly represent the aspirations of the people of Afghanistan and are ready to engage with the world,” Suhail Shaheen, whom the Taliban have nominated as their permanent representative to the U.N., said Friday.

The U.N. should listen to us to hear our side of the story. It is proved, policy of isolation is in the interest of none,” insisted Shaheen, who is based in Doha, Qatar, where the Taliban run their political office.

Pakistan, China, and Russia have all moved to engage with the Taliban and have been urging the global community to engage with and help the new rulers in Kabul meet urgent humanitarian needs of Afghans.  

They have demanded unfreezing of Afghan assets and removal of other economic sanctions on Kabul but they also have linked recognition of the new Taliban government until it delivers on its stated commitments.

“Just as an overwhelming majority of countries around the world, we prefer to most closely watch what the Taliban have been doing in Afghanistan, what final shape the structure of power in that country will take, and how the given promises will be fulfilled. We are monitoring this very closely,” Russian media quoted presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying Friday.  

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, while addressing a virtual conference of G-20 foreign ministers on Thursday, also underscored the importance of the Taliban ensuring a broad and inclusive governance system in Kabul but slammed the freezing of Afghan assets by the U.S. and international lending institutions.

“Afghanistan’s foreign exchange reserves are its national assets and should be owned by and used for the people, rather than being used as a bargaining chip to exert political pressure on Afghanistan,” he said.  

Pakistan was among the only three countries, including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, that recognized the Taliban government from 1996 to 2001, after the movement emerged the winner from the then-Afghan civil war. The rest of the global community isolated Afghanistan, citing human rights abuses by the Taliban, including among other things, its ban on women and girls from work and receiving an education.

However, Qureshi has recently stated Islamabad was not in a rush to extend diplomatic recognition to the Taliban’s new government but will keep sending humanitarian assistance to the neighboring country, with which Pakistan shares a nearly 2,600-kilometer border.  

On Monday, the U.N. secretary-general received a letter from the Taliban notifying him that they want to replace Afghanistan Ambassador Ghulam Isaczai, who was appointed in July by the ousted Kabul government, with their own envoy. Acting Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi, in his letter, said they want to participate in the current UNGA debate.  

Afghanistan is slated to speak last, on September 27. Presumably that would be Isaczai, who is still the accredited representative.

A U.N. spokesman said it will be up to a nine-member General Assembly credentials committee to decide who will represent Afghanistan at the United Nations. It is unlikely to meet before October, however, making it doubtful the Taliban could address the annual debate.
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Leaders of the United States, Japan, Australia and India are to meet in person Friday in Washington to discuss cooperation in the Indo-Pacific in the face of China’s growing power in the region.

Leaders of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, or the Quad – U.S. President Joe Biden, Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia, Prime Minister Narendra Modi of India, and Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga of Japan – met virtually in March, but Friday marks their first face-to-face summit. 

“The Quad Leaders will be focused on deepening our ties and advancing practical cooperation on areas such as combatting COVID-19, addressing the climate crisis, partnering on emerging technologies and cyberspace, and promoting a free and open Indo-Pacific,” White House spokesman Jenn Psaki said in a statement.

China has been steadily building military outposts in the region and using them to back claims it controls vital sea lanes.

The Washington meeting comes in the wake of a recently announced agreement among the U.S., Britain and Australia to supply Australia with nuclear submarines.  

The deal angered France by undercutting a deal it had with Australia to supply it with diesel submarines. France recalled its ambassadors from both the U.S. and Australia in protest.

China condemned the deal, calling it damaging to regional peace.

The Quad meeting also comes amid stronger talk by the U.S. and its allies in support of Taiwan, which China views as a rogue province, and a renewed effort by the European Union to “enhance” its naval presence in the region.
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Abdugheni Sabit has been closely watching the developments in Afghanistan since the Taliban took control of the government. 

Sabit is Uyghur, a member of the Muslim minority group from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. As an exile living in the Netherlands, he has been fighting for the rights of Uyghurs since 2007. He has been following the Taliban’s comments about other allegedly mistreated Muslim groups around the world.

“The Taliban has been making statements for years about Muslim groups who were allegedly abused in the countries or regions by the state authorities,” Sabit told VOA. “They raised their voice for Muslims in Palestine, Kashmir and other parts of the world and called the Islamic ummah [community] to rise up.” 

The Taliban, however, have been silent on what human rights organizations have identified as the mistreatment of more than 12 million Uyghur Muslims in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwest China, which shares a border with Afghanistan, Sabit said. 

Rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch accuse the Chinese government of arbitrarily detaining more than 1 million Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims in internment camps, where people allegedly have been forced to denounce their religion of Islam, pledge allegiance to the Chinese Communist Party and endure other mistreatments such as forced labor and involuntary sterilization.

China denies these accusations, saying those complexes are not internment camps but vocational education and training centers for the reeducation of people whose minds were poisoned by the “three forces of evil,” namely “religious extremism, terrorism and separatism.” 

Taliban-Uyghur relationship 

Many Central Asia scholars have been trying to understand the Taliban and its views of the Uyghurs. 

The Taliban are a multiethnic political movement, while Uyghurs are an ethnic group. Many Uyghurs live in China and share a belief system with the people of Afghanistan. 

When referring to the Taliban, “we generally use the term ‘movement’ because of how it originated. It was organic and kind of erupted from the south of the country, and then people joined it as it advanced,” said Ibraheem Bahiss, a consultant on Afghanistan with the International Crisis Group, an anti-war advocacy group. “It’s got its own ideology affiliation,” he told VOA. “It’s got various groups join[ing] it. So, it’s a political entity, and it’s not really an ethnic entity, per se.” 

According to scholars of Islam and to Sabit, who considers himself a devout Muslim, in terms of faith, most of the Uyghurs in China and the people of Afghanistan belong to the Hanafi sect of Sunni Muslims, which creates the potential for historic, religious and cultural bonds between the two groups. Many Uyghurs, however, see the Taliban as an outlier.

Most Uyghurs are highly liberal in how they understand and implement their Islamic beliefs, said Salih Hudayar, the Uyghur president and founder of the Washington-based East Turkistan National Awakening Movement. 

“Unlike the Taliban, Uyghurs hold women and children’s rights, especially education, in high regards. Most Uyghurs are not sympathetic of the Taliban and view them as very extreme,” Hudayar told VOA. “I personally view the Taliban as extremists as their implementation of religion is not compatible with the general teachings of Islam, and the Taliban has effectively politicized religion to undermine the very human rights of the Afghan people.” 

The Taliban and China 

“If the Taliban speaks up for Uyghur Muslims in China, it might increase its reputation [globally]. But at the same time, the group is wary of losing China’s support,” Sabit told VOA. 

Experts say that when it comes to Muslim world issues, the Taliban are now more selective in picking their fights because they are no longer just a movement, but representatives of a country. The Taliban government is also trying to establish relations with China to solicit the resources Afghanistan needs. 

“China is one of the few countries that has the capacity and that has shown a willingness to work with the Taliban, provided they meet basic requirements around counterterrorism,” Bahiss said. 

Uyghur militants in Afghanistan 

On September 9, the Chinese state paper Global Times asked Taliban spokesperson Suhail Shaheen whether the Taliban would consider extraditing members of the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), a Uyghur militant group, to China at the Beijing’s request. 

“I know after the Doha [Qatar] agreement, many have left Afghanistan, because we categorically said that there is no place for anyone to use Afghanistan against other countries, including neighboring countries,” Shaheen told the Global Times. 

According to a June U.N. report, the Turkestan Islamic Party, an insurgent group formed in Afghanistan by exiled Islamist Uyghurs from China — which is also known by the widely accepted alias of ETIM — has several hundred members. The U.N. designated ETIM as an international terrorist organization. The U.S. removed it from its terrorist list in November. 

“I don’t imagine the Taliban will in the coming months, or perhaps even years, acquiesce to a request to deport people out of the country,” Bahiss told VOA. “And that’s because of the mentality within the movement — because they do fear a backlash” from potential Uyghur sympathizers within the Taliban rank and file. 

But other experts look at the Taliban’s actions in the past. The Taliban have never taken a clear stance on the fate of Uyghurs inside China, but they have cooperated with China regarding Uyghurs inside Afghanistan, said Sean Roberts, director of the International Development Studies Program at  George Washington University and author of the book, The War on the Uyghurs.

“Starting back in the late 1990s, the Chinese government sought the assistance of the Taliban to ensure that any Uyghurs in Afghanistan could not advocate for Uyghur independence or establish any sort of security threat to the People’s Republic of China,” Roberts told VOA. “And the Taliban appears to have done that and made sure that Uyghurs in Afghanistan in the late 1990s and early 2000s were unable to be a threat to the People’s Republic of China or to really advocate for legal or political rights or human rights.” 

Not all Uyghurs back militants 

Roberts said many Uyghurs reject the use of religion as a political tool in their struggle for human and political rights. 

“There’s a lot of Uyghurs who, particularly since [the 9/11 attacks in the U.S.], have tried to communicate to the world that Uyghurs are not aligned with [religious] extremist groups,” Roberts said. 

That is also the view of Abdugheni Sabit. 

“Even though Uyghurs are not religious radicals or extremists or did not create a religious political movement like the Taliban, after the U.S. war on terror, China has wrongfully been labeling us as religious extremists or terrorists who need to be civilized in camps,” he said. 
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