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THE BELOW
When one hurts or kills a women
one hurts or kills hummanity and is an antrocitie.
Gino d'Artali
and: My mother (1931-1997) always said to me <Mi
figlio, non esistono notizie <vecchie> perche puoi imparare qualcosa da
qualsiasi notizia.> Translated: <My son, there is no such thing as so
called 'old' news because you can learn something from any news.>
Gianna d'Artali
The Guardian
Today in focus
17 Jan 2022
<<Afghan female MPs fight for their country in exile.
After a harrowing escape from the Taliban, Afghanistan’s female
politicians are regrouping in Greece to fight for their country. Amie
Ferris-Rotman reports on the work of the Afghan women’s parliament in
exile.
In November, 28 former female MPs gathered in Greece. They’d fled the
Taliban in dramatic fashion, and were now reunited in a community centre
run by Melissa Network, a grassroots organisation for female migrants
and refugees that played a role in their evacuation. The journalist Amie
Ferris-Rotman was there; she tells Nosheen Iqbal about the emotional
first meeting of the Afghan women’s parliament in exile in Athens.
There, the women – some junior politicians, some elder stateswomen, some
from prominent wealthy political families, some from poorer backgrounds
– traded stories of their escapes and shared hopes for the country they
left behind. Shagufa Noorzai, 22, who had been the youngest member of
parliament before the Afghan government fell, says she wants the women
left behind in Afghanistan to know they have not been forgotten. Greece,
with its own complicated political relationship with immigration, is in
some ways an unlikely haven for these women, but for now, it is where
they have found safety. While the women wait to see if they will be
granted asylum in places such as Canada, the US and Britain, they are
drafting policy proposals on everything from combating hunger to
educating women – and are trying to make their voices heard. >>
Listen to the Podcast here:
https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2022/jan/17/afghan-female-mps-fighting-for-their-country-from-exile-podcast
Al Jazeera
17 Jan 2022
<<Taliban says all Afghan girls will be back in school by March
Senior Taliban leader Zabihullah Mujahid says the group is looking to
open classrooms for all girls by March 21.
Girls’ schools across Afghanistan will hopefully reopen by late March, a
senior Taliban leader has told the Associated Press, offering the first
timeline for the resumption of high schools for girls since the group
retook power in mid-August. Speaking to journalists on Saturday,
Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesman for Afghanistan’s government and deputy
minister of culture and information, said the group’s education
department would open classrooms for all girls and women in the Afghan
New Year, which starts on March 21. Girls’ schools across Afghanistan
will hopefully reopen by late March, a senior Taliban leader has told
the Associated Press, offering the first timeline for the resumption of
high schools for girls since the group retook power in mid-August.
Speaking to journalists on Saturday, Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesman for
Afghanistan’s government and deputy minister of culture and information,
said the group’s education department would open classrooms for all
girls and women in the Afghan New Year, which starts on March 21.
Although the Taliban has not officially banned girls’ education, the
group’s fighters have shuttered girls’ secondary schools and barred
women from public universities in some parts of the country.
Girls in most of Afghanistan have not been allowed back to school beyond
grade 7 since the Taliban takeover, and reversing that has been one of
the main demands of women’s rights activists and the international
community for months. Education for girls and women “is a question of
capacity,” Mujahid said in the interview. <We are trying to solve these
problems by the coming year,> so that schools and universities can open,
he added. The international community, reluctant to formally recognise a
Taliban-run administration, is wary that the group could impose harsh
measures similar to its previous rule 20 years ago. At the time, women
were banned from education, work and public life. <We are not against
education,> Mujahid stressed, speaking at the culture and information
ministry in Kabul.
<In many provinces, the higher classes (girls’ school) are open, but in
some places where it is closed, the reasons are economic crisis and the
framework, which we need to work on in areas which are overcrowded. And
for that we need to establish the new procedure,> he said. Girls older
than grade 7 have been allowed back to classrooms in state-run schools
in about a dozen of the country’s 34 provinces.
‘Education for girls is a crime’
High school student Anzorat, who gave only her first name, expressed
doubt.
<I don’t think they will reopen girls’ school because they have said so
many things but haven’t followed up. If they really open the schools
again it would be the best for girls,> she said.
<From the Taliban’s perspective education for girls is a crime, if it
wasn’t like this they wouldn’t have banned them from schools,> the
19-year-old told Al Jazeera.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/17/taliban-says-will-open-all-schools-for-girls-across-country
Opinion by Gino d'Artali: Just shortly: 'NEVER TRUST A TALIBAN'S WORD!!'
Quote Mama
Al Jazeera
16 Jan 2022
<<From: Inside Story
Can Afghanistan avoid a hunger crisis?
The United Nations World Food Programme says eight out of every nine
families in Afghanistan are going hungry. The lack of food is the result
of Afghanistan’s economic crisis. It has been compounded by the
worldwide isolation of the Taliban government. The United States and the
Western donors cut funding and blocked the Taliban from $9bn in foreign
cash reserves. Taliban leaders want those funds released.
But would that be enough to prevent a humanitarian crisis?>>
Watch the 25 minute video here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/inside-story/2022/1/16/can-afghanistan-avoid-a-hunger-crisis
The Guardian
Agence France-Presse in Kabul
16 Jan 2022
<<Taliban forces pepper-spray women’s rights protesters in Kabul
One woman reportedly taken to hospital after protest calling for right
to work and education is stopped.
Taliban forces have fired pepper spray at a group of women protesting in
Afghanistan’s capital to demand rights to work and education. Since
seizing control of the country by force in August, the Taliban
authorities have imposed creeping restrictions on Afghans, especially on
women.
About 20 women gathered in front of Kabul University on Sunday, chanting
<equality and justice> and carrying banners that read <women’s rights,
human rights>, an AFP correspondent reported.
The protest was later dispersed by the Taliban fighters, who arrived at
the scene in several vehicles, three of the protesters told AFP.
<When we were near Kabul University three Taliban vehicles came, and
fighters from one of the vehicles used pepper spray on us,> said one
woman, who asked not to be named for security reasons. <My right eye
started to burn. I told one of them: ‘Shame on you,’ and then he pointed
his gun at me.> Two other protesters said that one of the women had to
be taken to hospital after the spray caused an allergic reaction in her
eyes and face. An AFP correspondent saw a fighter confiscate a mobile
phone from a man who was filming the demonstration. The hardline
Islamist group have banned unsanctioned protests and have frequently
intervened to forcefully break up rallies demanding rights for women.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/16/taliban-forces-pepper-spray-women-rights-protesters-kabul
The Guardian
16 Jan 2022
<<Afghanistan: the left behind
Interview
‘We are struggling’: two former officials at Afghan women’s affairs
ministry.
As told to Emma Graham-Harrison
Gul Bano* and Karima* are activists who ran provincial branches of the
ministry of women’s affairs in two different parts of Afghanistan. Their
former offices have been taken over by the Taliban’s feared enforcers,
the ministry for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice. They
are now in hiding, afraid of the men they helped put in prison for
domestic violence and other abuses, many of them in the Taliban or with
family links to the militants.
Karima
I know at least four women activists or government workers who have been
killed in the last four months, and one who was kidnapped and it is not
clear what happened to her. I moved from my province to a bigger city in
July, but the security situation there was also bad so I set off for
Kabul, planning to get my passport and leave the country. Unfortunately
my family and the Taliban arrived in Kabul on the same day, and we are
still waiting for the passports. I advocated for women for the past 15
years, that’s why Taliban are looking for me. I supported women who were
victims of violence, and I was threatened for that even under the last
government. Six women from our office were killed in recent years. In
the first few days of Taliban rule I got so many calls, asking where is
this woman and that woman you supported, what is their address? Women we
were supporting and helping to escape from violent situations were
mostly from very remote regions and villages under Taliban control, so
their relatives were Taliban. And these were some of the people calling
me and threatening me. Many of the abusers had been imprisoned because
of our work for women’s rights, then the Taliban took over and released
all the prisoners, and now most of the threats are coming from these
abusers. According to their point of view I am not even a Muslim because
I was advocating for women’s rights. I don’t feel safe here. We change
where we are staying every week and I have told even my very close
relatives that we left Afghanistan already. We are in a crisis as we
have no salary to pay rent, – in addition to fears about the Taliban, we
also have to worry about cold and hunger.
We applied for asylum everywhere we could think of, including the UK,
and received no news, so I am here with my husband and children, waiting
and sitting. I am sure I won’t be able to remain in Afghanistan. Even if
I don’t get support, I will smuggle myself to Iran, Tajikistan or
Pakistan.
Gul Bano
I’ve been living in fear and shock since the fall of Kabul. We held a
women’s protest and they tried to attack and stop us. So now I’m in
hiding and always under direct threat due to my job as a women’s rights
activist and a [former] government employee. I’ve been receiving
threatening calls on a daily basis, not only from the Taliban but also
from relatives and family members of those women I tried to defend. They
tell me: <We are following you, we see you but you don’t see us.> Even
under the previous government there were several attempts against my
life by these men, which fortunately I escaped unharmed I fled my home
when the Taliban took over and they seized it, looted all my possessions
and took all of my documents. It is in a very good neighbourhood, and
now one of the most senior Taliban officials in the province lives
there, which breaks my heart. I was defending women’s rights in that
house and the Taliban are living there now. It hurts me, and I’m facing
real mental health challenges now. It’s not only me. We, the heads of
the ministry of women’s affairs offices in 34 provinces, are struggling.
The Taliban are trying to track us down and we only try to keep
ourselves safe by changing where we stay.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/16/we-are-struggling-two-former-officialsafghan-women-affairs-ministry
The Guardian
16 Jan 2022
<<Afghanistan: the left behind
Interview
‘The Taliban shot my wife in the head’: ex-UK government contractor
As told to Emma Graham-Harrison
Asif* has lost almost everything since the Taliban takeover in
Afghanistan. His wife was shot dead. He fled to Pakistan but has no
legal status there and is living in a mosque while seeking treatment for
recurrent cancer. He worked for the United Nations and other
international organisations including the former UK Department for
International Development (DfID). Until 2016 he also worked for Adam
Smith International on British government-funded projects.
In September, my wife went to the house of one my relatives with another
family member to collect some of our belongings – she was three months
pregnant with our first child. They went at midnight, so they wouldn’t
be seen or recognised. But someone must have reported them, because
early in the morning the Taliban came to the house and started shooting.
She had been asleep, and when she came out to see what was happening,
one of the Taliban just shot her in the head.
Three days later, she died in hospital. After she died they detained the
other family member for a few days and said: <We won’t release you until
you say where Asif is.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/16/the-taliban-shot-my-wife-in-the-head-ex-uk-government-contractor
Al Jazeera
16 Jan 2022
<<Sudan withdraws licence of Al Jazeera Mubasher
Sudanese authorities say the decision was taken following the channel’s
‘violation of the terms’ of licensing.
Sudanese authorities have withdrawn the broadcast licence of Al Jazeera
Mubasher, the channel has said. In a statement on Sunday, the
Qatar-based media network said authorities also revoked the
accreditation of two of its journalists in the country. <Al Jazeera
condemns the interference with its duty to convey fair and objective
coverage of events in the country and to allow its journalists to
operate unhindered and to practise their profession,> it said.
<The Network views this as an attack on press freedom as a whole and
calls on international human rights and media organisations to condemn
this infringement of journalists’ safety.>
Sudan’s ministry of culture and information said in a statement on
Saturday that the decision was taken in response to the channel’s
<unprofessional conduct>. It said the channel’s coverage took aim at the
<social fabric of the country by airing content contrary to the ethics
of the profession and the mores and customs of Sudanese people>. <[This]
has harmed the country’s highest interests and its national security …
It indicates a violation of the terms under which a license was
granted.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/16/sudan-withdraws-al-jazeera-mubasher-license
Opinion by Gino d'Artali: Do not forget that the military took over
through a coup and that like always the freedom of the press is, apart
from women who are the first victims and in this case of rape,
threatened too.
Al Jazeera
By Arwa Ibrahim and Mohsin Khan Momand
12 Jan 2022
<<Afghan women face hardship as Taliban struggles to revive economy.
Several Afghan women Al Jazeera spoke to say they have struggled to put
food on the table as Taliban fails to revive the economy.
Kabul, Afghanistan – For Zaigul, a 32-year-old housewife from Nangarhar
province who lives at the Nasaji camp for internally displaced persons (IDPs)
near the capital, Kabul, life was already difficult before the Taliban
seized power on August 15 last year.
She worked as a maid while her husband Nasir worked at construction
sites to bring food to the table for their seven children, but not any
more. Since the Taliban’s return to power, the country has plunged into
unprecedented economic crisis, with banks running out of cash and state
employees suffering from months of unpaid salaries.
The freezing of billions of dollars of Afghan assets by the US and
suspension of funds by international financial institutions have caused
a near collapse of the fragile economic system marred by decades of war
and occupation.
Zaigul, like millions of other Afghans, has no work as most economic
activities have run aground following the collapse of the West-backed
government of President Ashraf Ghani and the chaotic withdrawal of the
US forces in August.
<The most pressing issue is the financial difficulties,> said Zaigul, as
she sat on the floor of her one-room home, her children huddled around
her. <You can live without freedom, but you can’t live if you have
nothing to eat,> she told Al Jazeera.
The United Nations on Tuesday said about 22 million people – more than
half of Afghanistan’s population – face acute hunger. It sought nearly
$5bn in aid for the country to avoid a humanitarian <catastrophe>.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/1/12/afghan-women
The Guardian
12 Jan 2022
Opinion - Gordon Brown
<<The people of Afghanistan are starving; to turn our backs on them is
morally wrong.
A liberal world order that puts military and economic sanctions before
food is neither liberal nor orderly. How can it be that, in these first
weeks of 2022, the world is allowing millions of Afghan children to face
death from starvation? And this after months during which the UN, a
score of governments, the EU and the Arab League, not to mention US
ex-army commanders, ambassadors and humanitarians, have been publicly
pleading for immediate action to stop the cascade of Afghan lives lost
to famine and malnutrition.
On Tuesday, Martin Griffiths and Filippo Grandi, UN humanitarian and
refugee coordinators, once again begged countries to send food and
urgent supplies. They announced the biggest humanitarian appeal mounted
since 1945 for a single country, a $4.5bn request to help more than 23
million Afghans on the edge of starvation. For the devastation the world
was warned about months ago is no longer a distant prospect. <Let us
eat> was the stark banner under which protesters demonstrated a few days
ago in Kabul, as the guarantees of assistance made by world powers in
August have melted into a trail of broken promises. Dawn in Afghanistan
sees long queues of women and children outside bakeries for the one food
staple still available – bread – and even that is in short supply due to
a 40% drop in wheat production after the worst drought in decades.
Griffiths forecasts that if we do not act, 97% of Afghans could soon be
living below the poverty line. In other words, to be Afghan today is to
be sentenced to dire poverty or destitution. Aid workers are finding
children huddled together under threadbare blankets in temporary camps
and hovels or lying wrapped in their mothers’ burqas outside hospitals
waiting for treatment that is simply not available. Until August, 30
million Afghans depended on World Bank-managed healthcare. Now, more
than 90% of the country’s health clinics lack the funds to stay open.
Only 11% of Afghans have had a Covid vaccine.
International aid workers are courageously doing their best to keep some
food aid moving, some clinics functioning and some schools open for boys
and girls. But their work is undercut and any progress is cancelled out
by the withdrawal of the aid money that previously accounted for 43% of
Afghanistan’s GDP and funded 75% of public expenditure, and by the
freezing of banking transactions and trade with Afghanistan, with the
result that there is little private cash circulating either.
This is the new world order revealed at its most selfish and morally
defective: countries are locked into the narrow nationalism of <America
first>, <Britain first>, <China first>, <Russia first>, <my tribe
first>, and trapped in a geopolitics that puts military and economic
sanctions before food for the hungry. Even after America’s $308m
contribution on 12 January, the 35-country, US-led coalition that ruled
Afghanistan for 20 years under the banner of helping the Afghan people
has still put up only a quarter of the money that would allow UN
humanitarians to stop children dying this winter. >>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/12/people-afghanistan-starving-sanctions-before-food-gordon-brown
Al Jazeera
11 Jan 2022
<<US to give additional $308m in humanitarian aid to Afghanistan
Biden administration to channel more funding to humanitarian groups as
millions of Afghans face extreme hunger.
The United States will donate an extra $308m in humanitarian aid to
Afghanistan, the White House has announced, bringing the total of US aid
for Afghanistan and Afghan refugees in the region to nearly $782m since
October. The aid will be channelled through the US Agency for
International Development (USAID) to humanitarian organisations
providing shelter, healthcare, and emergency food aid, among other
services, White House spokesperson Emily Horne said in a statement on
Tuesday. >>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/11/us-to-give-additional-308m-in-humanitarian-aid-to-afghanistan
Al Jazeera
11 Jan 2022
<<Taliban releases prominent Afghan professor from custody: Family
Faizullah Jalal had been detained for several days after he criticised
the Taliban’s rule.
The Taliban have released a prominent university professor and outspoken
critic of successive Afghan governments who was arrested during the
weekend, a family member said. Hasina Jalal, Faizullah Jalal’s daughter,
said on Tuesday that her father had been freed from Taliban custody. The
group had accused him of making provocative remarks against the
government. Jalal had been detained on Sunday by the Taliban’s
intelligence arm.
<After more than four days of detention on baseless charges, I confirm
that Professor Jalal is now finally released,> Hasina posted on Twitter,
after launching a social media campaign calling for his immediate
release.
A longtime professor of law and political science at Kabul University,
Jalal has earned a reputation as a critic of Afghanistan’s leaders
during the past decades. Jalal has made several appearances on
television talk shows since the US-backed government was pushed out in
August, blaming the Taliban for a worsening financial crisis and
criticising them for ruling by force.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/11/taliban-releases-afghan-professor-faizullah-jalal
The Guardian
10 Jan 2022
<<From the agencies
The struggling shopkeepers of Afghanistan – in pictures
An Afghan vendor selling birds to be kept as pets waits for customers in
his shop in Kabul Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
Nearly four months after the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan,
the country is at risk of near-universal poverty. The economic crisis
has worsened since the Taliban took over and most Afghans live on less
than $2 a day. We take a look at the shopkeepers trying to make.>>
View the pictures here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2022/jan/10/the-struggling-shopkeepers-of-afghanistan-in-pictures
Opinion from Gino d'Artali: And especcialy note that one don't see
female street vendors!
The Guardian
Diane Taylor
10 Jan 2022
<<Afghans risk dying in freezing temperatures in Calais (France),
charities warn. People who fled Taliban are starting to arrive in
northern France in hope of reaching UK.
Afghans who fled the Taliban risk dying in freezing temperatures in
Calais, NGOs have warned. People who left Afghanistan after the US
withdrawal this summer have started to arrive in northern France in the
hope of reaching the UK by crossing the Channel in dinghies. But
charities have raised the alarm that conditions are deteriorating
sharply, putting thousands of lives at risk. A combination of freezing
temperatures, increasingly forceful evictions of refugees from makeshift
shelters by police and cuts to funding for charities working on the
frontline has created a perfect storm, the organisations said.
A legal challenge is under way against Priti Patel’s plans to use jet
skis to turn back small boats mid-Channel. The Times has reported Home
Office sources as saying the controversial pushback tactics could be
used for the first time this month. While thousands were airlifted out
of Afghanistan to safety in the UK when the Taliban took over, many
others were forced to make the same hazardous journey across land and
sea as those fleeing persecution in countries such as Sudan, Ethiopia,
Eritrea, Syria, Yemen and Somalia.
Charities say that at least 150 evictions have taken place by police in
northern France since Christmas. Care4Calais has reported that some of
the refugees they work with have been injured by teargas, rubber bullets
and batons used by the French police during evictions. The French
authorities have said that more than a dozen of their officers have been
injured during these evictions. The French authorities are issuing
increasingly long lists of roads where charities are not allowed to
distribute food and other essentials to refugees. The celebrity-backed
funder Choose Love pulled the plug on £600,000 of funding to
organisations providing food, water, blankets and other essential aid to
refugees in northern France at the end of last year, with the charities
affected warning they may be forced to close. Louis Woodhead,
facilitator with Calais Food Collective, said: <The lack of certainty
about future finding means we will have to start rationing how much food
we distribute. People here are already exposed to police brutality,
human rights abuses and have no safe way to claim asylum in the UK. It
is already a humanitarian crisis and if we’re forced to cut services the
situation is only going to get worse.> Imogen Hardman, operations
manager for Care4Calais in northern France, said the situation was dire
and deteriorating.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/10/afghans-risk-dying-in-freezing-temperatures-in-calais-charities-warn
Opinion by Gino d'Artali: I, in the mid-1995's, visited these camps
several times and what, again and again, struck me the most was (and at
present most likely again is) the situation of Afghani women and young
mothers in multiple ways abandoned: by their husbands; their country;
the US and other countries. In the end the full load is always falling
on the schoulders of the women!
Al Jazeera
By Maziar Motamedi
10 Jan 2022
<<Iran says won’t officially recognise Taliban after Tehran talks
Iran has been in constant contact with the Taliban since its August
takeover, but has called for an inclusive government.
Tehran, Iran – Iran is still some time away from officially recognising
the Taliban as the government of neighbouring Afghanistan, its foreign
ministry says, after a meeting with the group in Tehran.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Saeed Khatibzadeh said Sunday’s
high-level talks with Taliban representatives were <positive>, but Iran
is still “not at the point of officially recognising Taliban”.
“The current condition of Afghanistan is a major concern for the Islamic
Republic of Iran and the visit of the Afghan delegation was within the
framework of these concerns,” he added in a press conference on Monday.
The Taliban delegation, led by the group’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan
Muttaqi, met their Iranian counterparts led by Foreign Minister Hossein
Amirabdollahian. It was the first such visit by a Taliban delegation
since the group caused the collapse of the country’s Western-backed
government amid the chaotic withdrawal of the United States-led forces
in August. Since the fall of Kabul, Iran’s official position has been
that it will only recognise the Taliban if they manage to form an
<inclusive> government. Iran and the Taliban have been in contact since,
with special Iranian envoy Hassan Kazemi-Qomi making several trips to
Afghanistan in recent months.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/1/10/iran-says-wont-officially-recognise-taliban-after-tehran-talks
Opinion by Gino d'Artali: I fully agree with Iran but one, knowing the
taliban past/present will never form an inclusive government meaning by
and by it will just disappear as meaningless corn of dust in a fata
morgana desert.
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