ISLAMABAD — The supreme leader of Afghanistan’s Taliban declared Sunday that their campaign against illicit drug production in the country had eradicated the cultivation of opium poppies, which are used to make morphine or heroin. Hibatullah Akhundzada’s declaration follows recent media reports and satellite images backed by the United Nations and the United States, concluding that annual poppy cultivation has “significantly” […]
ISLAMABAD — Afghanistan’s Taliban rejected a fresh call Thursday from the United Nations to remove what it says are “punishing restrictions” on the impoverished country’s female population. The rebuke comes a day after a meeting of the U.N. Security Council was told the restrictions block Afghan women and girls from accessing education and work and participating in public life at large. […]
The UN is set to pull out from Afghanistan over women working rights. The organization said the decision would be “heartbreaking,” but the Taliban left them with no choice by forbidding women from working for the organization. Achim Steiner, the head of the U.N. Development Program, reportedly said the announcement comes after months of negotiations between the organization and Taliban […]
When the U.S. government started formally negotiating with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, in 2019, Tamana Ayazi was concerned the process excluded prevalent fears of Afghan women that a Taliban return to power would deprive them of their basic human rights. A filmmaker, Ayazi, decided to tell the world what was at stake for Afghan women through a documentary centered […]
A top U.N. official in Afghanistan said Monday that millions of Afghans are on the brink of starvation as winter approaches and humanitarian funding is running low. “The situation can be best described as pure catastrophe,” U.N. deputy special representative and humanitarian coordinator for Afghanistan Ramiz Alakbarov told reporters via video from Kabul. He said 19 million people are food […]
GENEVA — Delegates attending an urgent debate at the U.N. Human Rights Council on the status of women and girls in Afghanistan are urging the international community to exert maximum pressure on the Taliban. In opening Friday’s debate, U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet accused the Taliban of systematic oppression and of the exclusion of women and girls from public life […]
Aid groups said that, in the past, Taliban authorities tried to divert aid to areas and people that supported their views. Afghanistan’s Taliban administration has called on international governments to roll back sanctions and lift a freeze on the country’s central bank assets as the country deals with the aftermath of an earthquake that killed more than 1,000 people and […]
ISLAMABAD — Afghanistan’s Taliban have alleged the United States is blocking their way to securing international recognition for the Islamist group’s new government in Kabul. The insurgent-turned-ruling group seized power last August and installed an all-male interim administration following the end of almost 20 years of U.S.-led foreign military intervention in the war-torn South Asian country. “As far as recognition by […]
Days after the Taliban’s latest order, women presenters on Afghanistan’s top news channels went on air on Sunday with their faces covered. On Saturday, many of the news anchors had reportedly defied the edict to conceal their appearance on TV but their employers had come under pressure. After seizing power last year, the Taliban have increasingly imposed restrictions on women’s […]
Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have reportedly ordered female presenters on TV channels to cover their faces on air, the country’s biggest media outlet said Thursday. The order came in a statement from the Taliban’s Virtue and Vice Ministry, tasked with enforcing the group’s rulings, as well as from the Information and Culture Ministry, the TOLOnews channel said in a tweet. The […]
