Azadi Briefing

Welcome to The Azadi Briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter that unpacks the key issues in Afghanistan. To subscribe, click here.

I'm Abubakar Siddique, senior correspondent at RFE/RL's Radio Azadi. Here's what I've been tracking and what I'm keeping an eye on in the days ahead.

The Key Issue

Afghan rights campaigners and the United Nations have expressed concern over the treatment of Afghan women activists incarcerated by Afghanistan's Taliban rulers.

The Taliban currently holds at least five women's rights activists in detention. Neda Parwani, Zholya Parsi, Munizha Siddiqi, Bahare Karimi, and Parisa Azadeh languish in various Taliban prisons and detention centers around the capital, Kabul.

In an audio message, Siddiqi's mother said that her daughter has fallen ill while incarcerated in the infamous Pul-e-Charkhi prison.

"Pul-e-Charkhi is a place for murderers, criminals, and other rights abusers. It is not a place for women who protested for their rights," Golchehra Yeftali, a women's rights activist, told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi.

Meanwhile, activists say that Parsi has been returned to a Taliban intelligence detention center after undergoing hospital treatment.

"We were told that her mental and physical condition was not good because of the torture she endured in Taliban detention," said Mina Rafiq, another women's rights activist.

On December 7, the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan expressed its concern over the impact of "long-term, arbitrary" detentions of women activists by the Taliban.

It called on the Taliban "to ensure rights to health care, family visits, and legal representation are protected and fulfilled."

Why It's Important: The ongoing persecution of Afghan women rights activists underscores the Taliban's determination to impose an authoritarian political system in which the rights of Afghans can be violated with impunity.

Since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, its government has often violently put down protests by Afghan women. Taliban's security forces and intelligence service have imprisoned hundreds of women after their protests were declared illegal.

The Taliban has also taken the draconian step of banning women and teenage girls from education. It has severely curtailed their employment prospects, mobility, and any public role in society.

What's Next: There is no indication yet that the widespread international and domestic condemnation of the Taliban's abuses are forcing the group to change its behavior and outlook.

There are no signs that the Taliban government is willing to rescind harsh policies that deprive Afghan women of education, work, mobility, and other fundamental rights.

Instead, the group appears to be ready to continue paying a heavy price for its hard-line policies and rights abuses, at the risk of failing to achieve the domestic legitimacy and international recognition it seeks.

What To Keep An Eye On

Iran appears to be gearing up efforts to expel millions of undocumented Afghans. The expulsion coincides with the mass deportation of "undocumented Afghans" from Pakistan.

On December 4, Iranian Interior Minister Ahmad Vahidi reiterated that Tehran would deport all "illegal" migrants in the country, most of whom are Afghan nationals who fled war, persecution, and poverty in their country.

On December 3, an Iranian official confirmed that Tehran had banned undocumented Afghans from residing in, working in, and traveling to 16 of the country's 31 provinces.

Iranian officials seek to expel more than 2.5 million Afghans they say lack documents among the estimated 5 million Afghans currently living in the country.

Why It's Important: A mass expulsion of Afghans from Iran would dramatically worsen the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, where the majority of its estimated 40 million population needs humanitarian assistance.

International aid efforts to alleviate a dire situation caused by natural disasters and a crippled economy are already at the brink following the return of more than 450,000 Afghans who have been forced out of Pakistan since October. The returnees lack housing, sanitation, health care, adequate food, and employment, and are only a fraction of the more than 1.7 million undocumented Afghans Islamabad wants to expel.

Now, thousands of Afghans are being forced to leave Iran daily. The promised mass expulsion would inevitably create a crisis on top of a crisis, which Afghanistan's cash-strapped Taliban government and the humanitarian community is currently unprepared to deal with.

That's all from me for now. Don't forget to send me any questions, comments, or tips that you have. You can always reach us at azadi.english@rferl.org.

Until next time,

Abubakar Siddique

If you enjoyed this briefing and don't want to miss the next edition, subscribe here. It will be sent to your inbox every Friday.

Welcome to The Azadi Briefing, an RFE/RL newsletter that unpacks the key issues in Afghanistan. To subscribe, click here.

I'm Abubakar Siddique, senior correspondent at RFE/RL's Radio Azadi. Here's what I've been tracking and what I'm keeping an eye on in the days ahead.

The Key Issue

A new survey has found that around 90 percent of the more than 400,000 Afghans who have been forced from neighboring Pakistan in recent months are homeless.

The British charity Islamic Relief, which operates in Afghanistan, said in a report released on November 29 that one-third of the returnees face severe food shortages, while more than 60 percent are sick.

Islamabad has been deporting thousands of Afghans each day since the expiry of its November 1 deadline for some 1.7 million undocumented Afghan refugees and migrants to voluntarily leave the South Asian country.

Islamic Relief’s report, based on interviews with 315 returnees, also found that 92 percent lacked access to safe drinking water, while 71 percent had no access to sanitation.

Some 98 percent of returnees were worried about the safety of their family members, while 90 percent were concerned about their children’s access to education.

“Many of these people are returning to Afghanistan with nothing, just as a freezing winter approaches,” said Manzoor Ahmed, Islamic Relief’s acting country director in Afghanistan. “They don’t have a place to stay, they don’t have food or health care, they are sick and impoverished.”

Why It's Important: Afghans are returning to a country grappling with the world’s largest humanitarian crisis.

The hundreds of thousands of new returnees are adding to the more than 29 million Afghans -- out of a total population of around 40 million -- who need humanitarian assistance, according to the United Nations.

The cash-strapped Taliban government, which remains unrecognized and sanctioned by the international community, appears unable to absorb the returning refugees or address the humanitarian needs of Afghans.

Aid agencies operating in Afghanistan have called for more international funding to address the needs of the returnees, who lack shelter, warm clothes, and food.

“They are forced to return to Afghanistan at the worst possible time,” said Hsiao-Wei Lee, the country director for the World Food Program, on November 26. “We need to help them not only get through this winter but also help them rebuild their lives here.”

What's Next: Many of the new Afghan returnees face a grim future.

The Taliban has established temporary camps for the returnees near the border with Pakistan, and promised to assist them. But many returnees complain of a lack of tents, food, water, and sanitation.

"Everyone I know doesn't have housing and is facing many other problems,” Abdullah, who recently returned to the southern Afghan province of Zabul from Pakistan, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi. "It is impossible to live in tents because of the winter.”

What To Keep An Eye On

Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai is under fire for suggesting that the international community should not seek to forcibly remove the Taliban from power.

"We don't want a collapse of the regime or split of the regime. We have had enough of that in Afghanistan,” the 65-year-old told Kyodo News, a Japanese news agency, in an interview published on November 28.

Karzai, who lives in Kabul, suggested that dialogue with the extremist group could bring about changes to its controversial policies, including its severe restrictions on women’s rights.

But some rights activists criticized Karzai’s call for engagement with a group that has shown few signs of reversing its draconian policies.

"Since the Taliban returned to power, being a woman has become a crime,” Azita Nazimi, a women’s rights activist, told Radio Azadi. "All of what we have is the result of Karzai's past support for the Taliban.”

When in power from 2001 to 2014, Karzai called for a negotiated end to the war between the Western-backed Afghan government and the Taliban.

Why It's Important: Reconciliation among Afghans has long been touted as the best solution to end the more than four decades of war in Afghanistan.

But the Taliban has refused to share power with other Afghans and used force to impose its fundamentalist version of Islam on the population.

During intra-Afghan negotiations prior to the Taliban’s forcible takeover of Afghanistan in 2021, the extremist group rejected a power-sharing agreement with rival Afghans.

That's all from me for now. Don't forget to send me any questions, comments, or tips that you have. You can always reach us at azadi.english@rferl.org.

Until next time,

Abubakar Siddique

If you enjoyed this briefing and don't want to miss the next edition, subscribe here. It will be sent to your inbox every Friday.