OIC Should Establish Committee To Monitor Taliban Policies, Says Open Letter From Women

The court has ordered Pakistani authorities to refrain from deporting the artists until their asylum claims are processed.

The Associated Press on Friday, January 10, quoted Mumtaz Ahmad, a lawyer who has followed up on the cases of 150 Afghan artists, as saying that the court ruling is the first of its kind. According to him, these people had been living in an uncertain situation in Pakistan since 2023.

These artists are among about half a million people who fled Afghanistan after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021.

According to the court ruling, Pakistan is obliged to decide on the applications of 150 Afghan musicians and singers within the next two months, Mumtaz Ahmad said. Also, these artists have the right to register themselves with the United Nations Refugee Agency and receive refugee status.

Hashmat Ali, an Afghan singer, told The Associated Press, "I am very happy and grateful to the court. I hope that I will not face harassment and forced deportation now," he said, adding that Afghan singers and musicians would not be safe if they were deported to Afghanistan.

Pakistan, like many countries in the world, has not yet recognised the Taliban. According to the Associated Press, the country has deported more than 800,000 undocumented Afghans to Afghanistan in the past 18 months.

The Taliban has declared playing, listening to music, and producing it as "haram". The group has arrested and tortured some musicians during their three-year rule of Afghanistan.

On Friday, January 10, he said that 4,500 full scholarships will be awarded to Afghan students in the fields of medicine, engineering, agriculture and other fields.

The programme will offer 4,500 full scholarships at the undergraduate, masters, and doctoral levels over the next three years.

The special representative of Pakistan added that 33% of these scholarships will be allocated to female students.

The Pakistani official wrote in a note on his account on social media platform X that the programme is the largest and most popular foreign scholarship for Afghan students.

Mohammad Sadiq emphasised that the registration and exam process for this scholarship is online and will be completed within 45 days.

This month, he said, more than 22,000 applicants will take an online exam, followed by interviews for final selection. He said that the entire process would be completed within 45 days.

The decision has been announced by Pakistan at a time when girls and women in Afghanistan are facing severe restrictions from the Taliban.

Since coming to power, the Taliban has banned girls' education at secondary and university levels and banned women from working in many institutions, including non-governmental and international organisations.

He has claimed that the Pakistani army is training ISIS fighters at these shelters.

Abbas Stanekzai wrote on the social media platform X on Friday, January 10, that the Pakistani army is supplying weapons to ISIS and then sending them to Afghanistan to carry out attacks. He added that the Taliban had warned Pakistan several times in this regard.

The Taliban official stated that ISIS members who are present in Taliban prisons have confessed that they were trained in Pakistan, and this claim has been proven by the obtained videos.

Earlier, Amir Khan Muttaqi, the Taliban's foreign minister, had made similar accusations against a number of neighbouring countries, especially against Pakistan, but Pakistani officials denied such accusations.

ISIS and the Taliban have been fiercely hostile to each other in the past. This enmity, especially in eastern Afghanistan, has been accompanied by bloody conflicts.

ISIS accuses the Taliban of "making a deal with the West", while the Taliban calls ISIS "Khawarij" and considers them a threat against itself. ISIS has now become one of the Taliban's biggest challenges.

In the latest attack, ISIS killed Khalil-ur-Rahman Haqqani, the Taliban's minister for refugees, in his office in Kabul.

Julia Parsi, who had been in Taliban custody for more than three months, said that she underwent surgery for a deep wound in her right ear.

On Friday, January 10, Julia Parsi posted a picture which showed her in the hospital, and wrote, "The torture in prison has turned into incurable pain." She said that her ears were deeply scarred by the Taliban officials’ slaps in prison.

Julia Parsi added that the pain left by the Taliban's torture in prison has made her more mature and strengthened her will to continue the path of struggle. She stressed that women's abilities should be believed in because they are very strong.

The Taliban arrested women's rights activist Julia Parsi from her home in Kabul on September 27. During her detention, she was hospitalised due to the torture. After spending about three months in a Taliban prison, Julia was released from a Taliban prison on December 18.

"I'm fine, but four months later I have to have my other ear operated on," she wrote.

With the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in August 2021, Julia lost her job as a teacher, and her daughters were forced to drop out of school due to a ban on the education of women and girls.

In September 2021, Julia founded the spontaneous Afghan Women's Movement, which aims to promote education, employment, and freedom for women and girls. The movement spread rapidly and was able to organise numerous gatherings and protests in Kabul and other provinces.

According to sources, the attacks took place around 2 am last night in the Nava Pass area near Durand line.

According to sources, local residents have left their homes around Durand line following the attacks.

One resident of the area said that they left their homes to save their lives and that of his family, and that some other residents were forced to do so in the cold of winter.

"On this cold winter night, many villagers abandoned their homes and belongings to reach safe areas on foot," he said.

So far, there has been no detailed information about the possible casualties caused by these attacks.

The Taliban has not yet commented on the matter.

Pakistani officials have not yet commented on the new attacks on Afghan soil.

This comes as the Pakistani army also attacked TTP centres in Barmal Paktika in December last year. The attack left dozens dead and wounded.

Islamabad accuses the Taliban of harboring the TTP in Afghanistan, but the Taliban denies the claim

In response to the Pakistani attacks, the Taliban said that its forces had carried out retaliatory attacks on Pakistani soil.