Sunday, January 23, 2022
#Afghanistan - Taliban 2.0 aren't so different from the first regime, after all
The international community is closely monitoring the Taliban, after the group re-seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021. There is legitimate reason for concern. The Taliban are again ruling through fear and draconian rules.The Taliban's last regime, in the mid-1990s, was marked by human rights violations, including massacres, mass detentions and rape. The regime collapsed on Nov. 14, 2001, shortly after the U.S. launched its global war on terrorism. Even after the Taliban officially fell from power, their subsequent two decades of insurgency produced various gross human rights violations, an encompassing term under international human rights law.When the Taliban regained control over Afghanistan last year, some outside observers speculated that an evolved version of the group might materialize. These spectators assumed that the Taliban recognized it cannot govern merely with fear and bans. Many Afghan people still expressed widespread fear and skepticism about the Taliban's return. Branding Taliban 2.0 The Taliban have now been in power for almost five months. A clearer image of the human rights and personal freedoms situation in Afghanistan is emerging.As political science professors specializing in conflict and violence, we find that the Taliban's changes are limited to international public relations campaigns on social media and other outlets. While promoting a moderate face to the world, with promises of living "peacefully" and respecting women's rights, the regime has continued to systematically violate human rights and strengthen its autocratic grip. Theories about what experts called "Taliban 2.0" continued after the group assumed control over Afghanistan. Representatives from countries such as Turkey and Qatar encouraged the international community to engage with the Taliban. While international donors have frozen about $5 billion in foreign aid to Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover, some Western countries, including the U.S., have announced increases in aid to address the country's humanitarian crisis. Limiting the flow of information The Taliban have undertaken a systematic media crackdown to achieve their contradictory goals of presenting a softer face to the international community while violating Afghans' rights. The group is forcing media to follow two of the Taliban's dogmatic and moral regulatory bodies' guidelines. The Taliban also announced the "11 journalism rules," which include forbidding journalists from publishing or broadcasting stories that are "contrary to Islam" or "insult national figures." About 40% of the country's media sources have shut down, 6,400 journalists lost their jobs, including 84% of female journalists. Violence against media and journalists has again become widespread. Many other journalists have left the country. The media crackdown has a practical reason: limiting the flow of information about the regime's continued rights violations. United Nations human rights experts say they have received credible reports of the Taliban killing civilians, as well as hundreds of former Afghanistan security personnel across the country. The Taliban have shown gruesome hangings of dead bodies and stoning of people to death. An emerging humanitarian crisis Meanwhile, the humanitarian situation has deteriorated under the Taliban. Approximately 23 million Afghans are facing hunger, including 3.2 million children who are suffering from severe malnutrition. The Taliban leadership denies any responsibility for alleviating the looming humanitarian crisis. In November 2021, Taliban Prime Minister Mullah Hasan rejected the regime's responsibility for food insecurity in Afghanistan and asked people to "cry to God to alleviate famine and drought." Anas Haqqani, a senior member of the Taliban negotiation team in Doha, also downplayed the seriousness of the looming hunger crisis by rhetorically asking a BBC reporter if she had ever witnessed someone dying of hunger. Regressing on women's and girls' rights The Taliban's conduct toward girls and women also reveals a return to previous ways.The Taliban has banned women from traveling more than 72 kilometers from home without a male relative.In early December, the Taliban released a decree saying a woman is a "noble and free human being" and should not be forced into a marriage. The international community largely welcomed the announcement.However, a closer look at the decree reveals that the Taliban formalizes the regime's right to determine whether a woman actually consents to a union.The Taliban have systematically reinstated old restrictions on girls education and female employment.While most primary girls schools are closed across the country, secondary and tertiary education remains completely banned for girls.In 2017, U.N. Children's Fund figures showed that 3.7 million Afghan children were out of school, 60% of them girls. This percentage is now likely much greater with the Taliban's ban on girls education. This differs from the Taliban's recent public messaging on girls' and women's "right to education and work." To the domestic audience, the regime's messages are vague. Leaders condition reopening girls education, for example, to unclear economic and moral conditions. Deputy Prime Minister Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar said recently that once "economic challenges are resolved, we will provide education for all those who want to pursue their studies." The Taliban have also banned most female government workers from returning to their jobs, resulting in a workforce restriction that would result in economic losses totaling $1 billion. The only indication of a "new Taliban" is a much more sophisticated and strategic public relations approach for masking ongoing human rights violations.
https://www.christiantoday.com/article/taliban.2.0.arent.so.different.from.the.first.regime.after.all/138058.htm
#Pakistan - Growing terrorism threat - The Afghan Taliban are not fully cooperating with Pakistan in dealing with the TTP
THE terrorist attack on a police check post in the heart of the federal capital earlier this week was a dangerous happening. It is good that the security agencies have taken the incident very seriously (they should be equally concerned about the security of other cities such as Lahore that witnessed a blast on Thursday). But what is questionable is the state’s penchant for talking to the notorious banned group that claimed the attack. The Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has escalated terrorist attacks in Pakistan since the Afghan Taliban took power in Afghanistan, and the interior minister has indicated that the trend may continue in the coming weeks.
Last year too, two terrorist attacks were recorded in Islamabad in which the banned TTP killed three policemen and injured a couple of others. Indeed, the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi have witnessed sporadic terrorist violence in recent years despite perceptible security. During the last two years, the TTP and its factions have carried out 11 terrorist attacks in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, resulting in the deaths of 13 security, mainly police, officials. This week’s attack in Islamabad also targeted policemen. The second worrying aspect is that in the past the TTP remained active mainly in the outskirts of the federal capital, but the latest attack was reported from a busy sector in the heart of Islamabad.The attack reveals the intention of the terrorist group to create fear. If more such attacks happen, barricades and check posts on the roads of Islamabad will be brought back. Only recently, a sense of security had returned when the number of security check posts was reduced to a minimum. Though Islamabad has a functional safe city mechanism, the security of the federal capital remains critical and security departments can take any measures to counter threats. It will not be surprising if Islamabad comes under increased security surveillance when a so-called pro-Pakistan regime in Kabul is reluctant to hand over or act against terrorists causing insecurity in this country.
The Afghan Taliban are not fully cooperating with Pakistan in dealing with the TTP.
Some media reports indicate that certain Afghan Taliban leaders are trying to restrict the movement of the TTP leaders and impose an arms embargo on the group. But the situation on the ground is different and the TTP’s confidence is gradually improving. Meanwhile, Pakistan has reportedly initiated another round of peace talks with the TTP through a tribal jirga, which can only be interpreted as extending one more olive branch to the terrorists. One wonders why security institutions are obsessed with talking to the TTP, especially when the latter has taken a hard stance on talks and continues its attacks against Pakistan.
The killing of Mufti Khalid Balti, a former spokesperson of the TTP, has further increased the trust deficit between negotiators from both sides and their guarantors. In that context, if the mantra of talks is merely a tactic to create rifts in the TTP leadership then the cost is very high and still may not be enough to eliminate the threat. The TTP will continue to cause damage to Pakistan, and over time, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan will learn the tactics to avert pressure from Pakistan. After all, the TTP is their ideological brigade and shares the same view of establishing an Islamic order of governance.
Security institutions have to carefully craft the approaches to deal with groups like the TTP and Al Qaeda which are under the protection of the Taliban regime. The TTP is not only a major actor of violence in Pakistan, it is also a facilitator of the regional operations of Al Qaeda and the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). Al Qaeda has maintained its ties with the Afghan Taliban and has reportedly also helped the TTP recover and regroup in recent years; some Al Qaeda-aligned Pakistani groups even joined the TTP. In April 2021, CNN claimed, based on its interviews with two Al Qaeda operatives, that the group would step up its operations in the region after the US exit from Afghanistan. The report claimed that the group was planning a comeback by relying on its partnership with the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban.
Any probable operational alliance between the TTP and Al Qaeda or with ETIM against Chinese interests in Pakistan can prove lethal and cause a diplomatic crisis. The TTP can overcome its internal differences and restructure its networks. The group has seen many crises but has not lost its sting. It was involved in 87 terrorist attacks in 2021, an 84 per cent increase over its attacks across Pakistan the year before. Apart from these, most of the cross-border attacks from Afghanistan in 2021 (12 out of 14) were also perpetrated by the TTP. The geographical spread and number of TTP attacks in 2021 indicate that while the group carried out most of the assaults in former Fata, it also showed it had a presence in northern Balochistan and the Rawalpindi-Islamabad area.
One can imagine the potential lethality of the group which it has already displayed. Its core strengths include its close association with the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and a narrative that still attracts youth from the peripheries and religious institutions. The Afghan Taliban have proved themselves a liability for Pakistan and have been negatively affecting the country’s counterterrorism policies. They are not fully cooperating with Pakistan in dealing with the TTP, nor are they collaborating with it to secure Pakistan’s western border.
The TTP itself and Pakistan’s tendency to negotiate with it are encouraging other terrorist groups. The militant Islamic State group’s so-called Khorasan chapter has also become active in Pakistan, where it carried out multiple attacks in 2021 on Hazara Shias, alleged Afghan Taliban members and associated religious scholars, as well as political leaders/workers in Balochistan and KP. Several of its associates were arrested from parts of Sindh and Punjab in multiple search operations conducted by law enforcement during the year.
Pakistan has to devise a different approach to deal with the TTP threat. A timely change of course can save many precious lives and damage to the country.
President Asif Ali Zardari’s message on the farmers’ tractor march
In a statement issued from Media Office Islamabad, the former president said that a prosperous farmer is the guarantee of an agriculturally stable Pakistan.
The PPP will uphold its tradition of justice to the farmers and make it easier for the farmers to get their crops to the market. He said that the manifesto of the PPP is an agriculturally strong Pakistan. The former president said that the purpose of the farmers’ tractor march is to raise a voice against injustice with the farmers.
https://www.ppp.org.pk/pr/26142/
#Pakistan - Message of Chairman PPP Bilawal Bhutto Zardari on International Day of Education
In his message on the eve of International Day of Education being observed globally tomorrow, Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said that education remains top priority of his Party as it believes that the future belongs to our children and youth, and the dream of a bright future without education will remain unfulfilled. PPP governments always increased the education budget, whenever in power and established record number of universities and other technical education institutions in the history of country, he added.
He said that professional and technical education are key to a better future and for this purpose the share of education in budget has to be increased. Bilawal Bhutto Zardari pointed out that expenditure on education has dropped to 1.5% of the GDP during the selected regime of Imran Khan, which shows a sorry state of affairs. After winning the next general elections, PPP government will further increase the education budget, he vowed.
PPP Chairman said those compromising on the educational promotion and making unbearable cuts in the budget of universities and their allied centers are in fact causing great disservice to the nation. “Such approach is extremely hostile to the people, when on the one hand, about 25 million children between the ages of 5 and 16 are out of schools, while on the other, there is a big difference in access to quality education among the children of poor and privileged classes in the country,” he added.
Bilawal Bhutto Zardari pointed out that this is PPP’s manifesto that we will have to move beyond the traditional curriculum and teaching methods to an education system that will inculcate in children creative and critical problem-solving and decision-making skills. He pledged that after winning the next general election, PPP would ensure that, in accordance with the Constitution of Pakistan, the State provides equal access to quality education to all children, adding that, the peoples government will increase expenditure ratio of education to more than 3% of GDP initially and continue to maintaining our own record of establishing more and more universities, colleges and other technical education institutions.
https://www.ppp.org.pk/pr/26140/