According to Voice of America, the Taliban has warned that those who criticise the ‘Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan’ scholars and public servants with a gesture, word, or anything else will face punishment (VOA). The Taliban’s spokesperson, Zabiullah Mujahid, issued the new ‘instructions,’ citing their leader, Mullah Hebatullah Akhundzada. It stated that it was the ‘Sharia responsibility’ of the people and the media to implement these so-called guidelines.
The ‘instructions’ also forbid the general public from making unfounded accusations against Taliban workers and officials. The alleged instructions come amid a wave of arrests and torture of dissidents who have criticized the Taliban for interfering with girls’ education, as well as women’s and human rights.
These new directives were issued just weeks after Mujibur Rahman Ansari, an Islamic religious scholar from Herat, asked participants at the ‘Great Meeting of Scholars’ in Kabul to issue a fatwa calling for the beheading of Taliban opponents. According to VOA, the Taliban leader’s guidelines state that such actions constitute ‘negative propaganda’ that ‘unconsciously helps the enemies’. They have not stated who these ‘enemies’ are.
Furthermore, the Taliban leader’s ‘instructions’ state that anyone who ‘touches any soldier, pulls his clothes, or says bad things to him’ will be punished appropriately. The Taliban is currently at odds with the self-styled ‘National Resistance Front,’ which has repeatedly accused the fundamentalists of ‘arresting, killing, and injuring civilians’.
According to a UN report released earlier this week, 54 cases of torture and ill-treatment, 113 cases of arbitrary arrest and detention, 23 cases of incommunicado detention, and 18 extrajudicial killings of individuals affiliated with the National Resistance Front have been reported.
Post Your Comments