Category: World News

Gandhara Briefing: Afghan Diplomats, Refugees In Indonesia, Taliban Commandos

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Welcome to the Gandhara weekly newsletter. This briefing takes you the best of our reporting from Afghanistan and Pakistan. If you are new to the bulletin or not subscribed, you can do it here. I wrote about Afghan diplomats appointed by the Afghan government which fell against the Taliban efforts to take over their diplomatic mission. Five months after the Taliban took over, many Afghan diplomatic missions remained in the limbo with most of the staff were still loyal to the government supported by the previous West. "We represent the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. We cannot just turn on to represent the Islamic Emirates," an ambassador in Europe told me. Even when they run out of funds, many embassies still offer consular services for Afghanistan abroad and foreigners who tried to travel to Afghanistan. Another ambassador told me that it was not clear how long they could survive. "Our main problem is financially," he said. "It will be difficult to operate the embassy in the long run." In recent weeks, the Taliban had increased its efforts to control Afghan foreign posts. This step comes when the Taliban seeks international recognition for the regime. Ron Synovitz wrote about anger over the recent video that showed the default Taliban police embarrassing local musicians and burned their instruments. For many Afghan artists, the incident confirmed their worst fear. Apart from the claims to be more moderate than the previous regime, the Taliban treated musicians with the same insult, it had shown them in the 1990s when he prohibited music as "un-islamic." "I can't see the scene," said Afghanistan singer Goodar Zazai. "Tears flowed in my eyes when I watched it. I feel like it is my own body destroyed." Some observers have described the incident as an attack on Pashtun culture. "It's the same as to kill our songs, our music, and our identity," said Afrasiab Khattak, an activist of politicians and Pashtun rights from neighboring Pakistan. Afghanistan has talked about the Taliban police by hand and lacks Afghan culture. This week, the Taliban leaders in Uruzgan Province ordered male employees to stop cutting their beards and wearing the turban at work. Radio Azadi reported the fate of the thousands of Afghans who had been trapped in Indonesia for years. The refugees made the last ditch application on social media to change their situation. Indonesia is not a signatory to the international convention on the rights of refugees and does not have their own asylum law. The responsibility for determining who received refugee protection and was permitted to live back in third countries had fallen into the United Nations. The result is that thousands of Afghan refugees live in Limbo in the Islands, some for more than a decade, without livelihoods or security. "Refugees in Indonesia are tired, many of them suffer from mental and physical illnesses," said Mohammad Juma Mohseni, a 37-year-old child who has spent more than half of his life away from his family in exile.

Welcome to the Gandhara weekly newsletter. This briefing takes you the best of our reporting from Afghanistan and Pakistan. If you are new to the bulletin or not subscribed, you can do it here. I wrote about Afghan diplomats appointed by the Afghan government which fell against the Taliban efforts to take over their diplomatic […]

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