When the Taliban moved closer to Kabul in the early days of August 2021, a series of unusual advertisements flooded the shopping pages on Afghan social media. Musicians were putting their instruments and equipment – the tools of their trade – up for sale. Many were being offered for a fraction of what they were worth. Yet,… Read More The Taliban’s fear of art is killing Afghan culture
First posted January 20, 2016 The non-violent soldier of Islam, Bharat Ratna, died 28 years ago, on January 20, 1988. The assault on the university named after him in Pakistan is yet another attack on his legacy. Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan (1890-1988) is better remembered in India as Frontier Gandhi, and in Pakistan as Bacha… Read More Mukulika Banerjee: Remembering Bacha Khan. The beleaguered legacy of Frontier Gandhi, Abdul Ghaffar Khan
Mortaza Behboudi, an Afghan-French journalist, had been drawn back to Afghanistan, which he had left aged 21, to report on the deteriorating humanitarian conditions and situation for women. “He has a passion to give voice to people who had their voices taken from them, which is why he went back to Afghanistan,” says Aleksandra Mostovaja, Behboudi’s… Read More ‘We can’t remain silent’: journalists refuse to give up despite Taliban terror
Jamila*, a widow living in Herat, lost her husband in a suicide attack about eight years ago. She has an 18-year-old daughter who is blind and a 20-year-old son who lost both legs in a mine blast. Jamila used to be a housemaid and bake bread for people in their homes. With this income she… Read More Afghanistan: single women and widows are struggling to find their next meal under Taliban restrictions
The Pentagon’s National Defense Strategy Drives Record Military Spending By William J. Astore (Tomdispatch.com) – Imagine this scenario for a moment: a “great power” watches another major power fight a war in a nearby nation for 10 years before its army limps home defeated and, not so very long after, that country implodes. A little over a decade later, by… Read More Imperial Dominance Disguised as Democratic Deterrence
by Joey Watson with pictures by Muzafar Ali Muzafar Ali, who lives in Adelaide, grew up as a refugee in Pakistan after his family fled Afghanistan in the mid-1980s. As a child, the only pictures he saw of his birth country were through Taliban-issued jihadi calendars and the occasional news report. Photo: Muzafar Ali / The Guardian Ali is… Read More One Afghan refugee’s stunning photographs of the country’s ‘many stories that need to be told’
Following the Taliban’s ban on university education for girls, the male students in the country have boycotted their classes condemning the suspension of higher education for women, Tolo news reported on Sunday. The male students have put forward a strong opposition to attending classes until they are open for female students as well. “We will… Read More Male Afghan Students Boycott Classes, Protest Women’s Education Ban / ‘We are treated worse than animals’: Afghan women speak out against university ban
NB It is evident that the Taliban’s version of orthodox Islam treats women as second class beings, as children of a lesser God. All believers ought to either renounce these beliefs as inhuman, or hang their heads in shame. DS Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have ordered an indefinite ban on university education for the country’s women,… Read More Taliban ban Afghan women from university education
The CIA’s Intervention in Afghanistan: Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter’s National Security Adviser Le Nouvel Observateur, Paris, 15-21 January 1998 Zbigniew Brzezinski, National Security Adviser to Jimmy Carter, Dies at 89 Question: The former director of the CIA, Robert Gates, stated in his memoirs [“From the Shadows”], that American intelligence services began to aid… Read More The CIA’s Intervention in Afghanistan: Interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, Paris, 15-21 January 1998
The photographer Jim Huylebroek travelled across the country with the international children’s agency Save the Children, from the drought-ravaged plains of the north to the freezing streets of Kabul, capturing the stories of children whose lives have been devastated by the humanitarian crisis, for the series titled: children on the edge of life. The images… Read More Children on the edge of life in Afghanistan
After the truth-shower 