#BanTaliban Campaign Trends As Users Urge Twitter to Ban Taliban Accounts

During the meeting of the heads of Central Asian states in Kyrgyzstan, Rahmon added that the Taliban implements an aggressive discriminatory policy against various ethnic groups in Afghanistan.

The Kyrgyzstan meeting is the fourth in a series of consultative meetings of the leaders of Central Asian countries. The first such summit was held in March 2018 in Kazakhstan. The second summit was held in November 2019 in Uzbekistan, and the third round of this summit was held in August 2021 in Turkmenistan.

Before the meeting was initiated, the five countries’ foreign ministries prepared the draft roadmap for the development of regional cooperation from 2022-2024.

The leaders of the Central Asian countries outlined that in 2022, cooperation and stability in the region is high on their agenda.

Most Central Asian countries are worried about the influence of extremists in the region considering the latest developments in Afghanistan under the Taliban.

Sources said that after this incident, local residents brought the corpse to the capital of the district and sought explanation from Taliban on Thursday, July 21.

According to sources, Taliban forced a resident of Andarab in Kasa Tarash area to come out of his house and then, killed him, on July 20.

Local residents said that the Taliban dispersed people who had gathered in front of the district building through aerial firing.

This killing happened a day after UNAMA’s report regarding arbitrary killings of Taliban had been published.

UNAMA reported that the Taliban is not committed to their amnesty decree and killed tens of former security forces and employees during the past 10 months.

The company said that it will continue to block all pages affiliated to the Taliban.

On Wednesday, July 20th, all the pages of Bakhtar News Agency and Afghan National Television, the two media organisations controlled by the Taliban, were removed from Facebook and Instagram, the two joint social media networks of Meta Platforms Inc.

In response to Afghanistan International's questions about the crackdown on the Taliban’s pages, Meta Platforms quoted the company's spokesperson as saying, “The Taliban is a sanctioned terrorist organisation based on the laws of the United States of America. This group has been banned from using Meta's services based on our policies on dangerous organizations.”

Meta's email to Afghanistan International also states that accounts created by or on behalf of the Taliban will be closed to prevent them from representing this group and praising and supporting them.

Encouraging violence and beheading opponents

Informed sources told Afghanistan International that one of the reasons behind the Meta move is the coverage of an extremist Afghan cleric who supports the group and has demanded the beheading of the opponents of the Taliban government.

Mullah Mujib-ul-Rahman Ansari, who participated from Herat in Taliban’s meeting of nationwide clerics in Kabul in late July 2022, said that the opponents of the Taliban government should be beheaded. The Taliban-controlled media Bakhtar News Agency and Radio Television Afghanistan – RTA broadcast his speech for the first time.

Since taking over Afghanistan in August 15, 2021, the Taliban have imposed severe restrictions on media and controls the sector’s operation inside Afghanistan.

While independent media and news agencies in Afghanistan are prohibited from free reporting, the Facebook pages of the media groups of the former government of Afghanistan, which are now under the control of the Taliban, acted as sources of propaganda for the Taliban.

These Taliban-controlled media groups appreciate and encourage violence, including the group’s suicide bombers and use of terrorism.

Despite Meta Platform’s latest crackdown on Taliban-affiliated media operations on Facebook and Instagram, the media, spokespersons, and supporters of the group are still widely active on Twitter and conduct wide range of information operations in support of the group.

A welcomed move

The Meta Platform Inc.’s act against the Taliban-controlled media presence on the company’s social media arms has been widely welcomed by Afghan social media users.

While the Taliban officials considered the move as a violation of freedom of speech, the Afghan social media users stress that the Taliban do not believe in the principle of democratic values, including freedom of press.

Elyas Nawandish, an Afghan journalist, said that the Taliban have been engaged in arrest and torture of local journalists and recently threatened a foreign journalist to apologize for critical reporting about the group. According to Nawandish, the Taliban has never been tolerant of critics but, "when their propaganda tool has been closed, they complain that Facebook has violated their freedom of expression”.

Amrullah Saleh, the former vice-president of Afghanistan, has welcomed the closure of the media pages of the Taliban. Saleh said that some of the pages run by the Taliban "spread discrimination”. He expressed hope that "the banning of oppressive Taliban terrorist group will continue in the virtual world”.

Demands from Twitter

A day after the Taliban media pages were blocked by Facebook, Afghan Twitter users also started a campaign asking Twitter Inc. to block accounts affiliated with the Taliban.
These users argue that the Taliban is "a terrorist group" and should not be allowed to use Twitter.

Habib Khan, an Afghan Twitter user and former Wall Street Journal reporter in Afghanistan wrote on his Twitter: "My name is Habib and I am from Afghanistan. I request Twitter to prevent the Taliban from using this network."

Many of these users have asked Twitter to block Taliban accounts by mentioning their names and countries.

This campaign has been welcomed by citizens of other countries too.

According to the sources, Taliban raided Hussaini’s house and office and detained him and his guests. Sources added that Hussaini is being arrested for the second time by the Taliban. Hussaini’s relatives said that they aren’t aware of his whereabouts.

Hussiani has been one of the Taliban’s critics and over the past few months. He has called for the formation of an inclusive government and has demanded rights for the Shia community in Afghanistan.

Earlier, Hussaini had criticised the Taliban and said that there was no representation of Shias in the Taliban government. Hussaini had also stressed that their demands for Shia rights have not been considered.

He had said that recognition of Shia jurisprudence is the demand of the Shia community of Afghanistan and the Taliban should recognize it. Jawad Hussaini believed that the lack of formation of an inclusive government is a crisis in the country and stated that the Taliban government is a one-party, one-ethnic group government.

The Taliban has not yet commented on his arrest.

The arrest comes even as UNAMA on Wednesday, July 20th , released a report condemning the Taliban’s arbitrary arrests and killing of their opposition. Later, the Taliban’s spokesperson, Zabihullah Mujahid in a tweet denied the report and called it baseless accusations.

However, evidence show that arbitrary arrests continue to happen and the raid at Hussaini’s house is an example.

Lynne O'Donnell said on Wednesday that she was forced to apologize and published everything, which the Taliban had dictated to her, on her Twitter profile.

The FP columnist left Afghanistan for Islamabad on Wednesday.

According to her, the Taliban even made a video of her to project that she was not forced to apologize.

Lynne O'Donnell had published a series of tweets in which she apologized for her reporting about recent developments within the Taliban. She had written, “l apologize for 3 or 4 reports written by me accusing the present authorities of forcefully marrying teenage girls and using teenage girls as sexual slaves by Taliban commanders. This was a premeditated attempt at character assassination and an affront to Afghan culture.”

This is not the first time that the Taliban has pressurized foreign journalists in Afghanistan. In the past few months, the Taliban has arrested two western journalists in Kabul. Among others, Andrew North, was one of the journalists detained by the group.