Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan announced Friday that his opposition party would launch a voluntary arrest movement next week to protest the government’s “unconstitutional” refusal to hold key provincial elections and its purported “political victimization” of his aides and allies.

The planned agitation by Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) will likely deepen lingering political turmoil in the country. It also comes as incumbent Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s administration struggles to tackle a severe economic crisis.

“My ‘Jail Bharo Tehreek’ [fill the jail movement] will commence from Lahore on Wednesday and gradually we will take it to other major cities of the country,” Khan said in a nationally televised speech from that eastern city, the country’s second largest, on Friday.

The cricket-star-turned-politician has been recovering at his Lahore residence since being shot in the legs last November while leading an anti-government rally.

Khan, 70, came under attack in Punjab province, of which Lahore is the capital, and suffered multiple bullet injuries. He accuses the government of plotting to kill him.

The Pakistani opposition leader, who still enjoys popular support in the country, vowed Friday that he would personally court arrest once his bullet wounds heal.

Khan reiterated Friday his allegation of “political victimization,” saying the government had unleashed a crackdown on PTI officials and political allies, instituting fake cases against them, arresting them and torturing them in custody, charges government officials reject.

“[The government is] scaring us with jails, but we will fill them all and they will not have any space left in their jails,” Khan said.

Khan accused Sharif’s coalition government of using delaying tactics in violation of the constitution to avoid a test at the ballot. He has been pushing the country’s election commission to announce a date for new elections in Punjab and in northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in line with its constitutional obligations.

The PTI dissolved its governments in both provinces more than a month ago. The constitution binds election authorities to hold new elections within 90 days after the dissolution of an assembly, be it national or provincial.

Khan has also been urging the incumbent government to dissolve the national assembly parliament and announce a snap election, saying only that will ensure political and economic stability in Pakistan. But Sharif has rejected the demand.

Last April, Sharif successfully led an opposition parliamentary vote of no confidence against Khan, removing him from power after nearly four years in office and toppling the PTI-led coalition government.

Sharif subsequently formed a new coalition government, and his term as prime minister ends in August. But the new administration has lately come under intense public criticism as it takes key measures such as raising natural gas, electricity and gasoline prices to try to secure the revival of a financial bailout package from the International Monterey Fund.

The IMF program is crucial for Pakistan to stave off a growing risk of default, provided the government meets the lender’s conditions. Sharif blames Khan, his predecessor, for violating the IMF terms while in office.

Inflation has risen to more than 35%, and the country’s foreign exchange reserves have depleted to around $3 billion, barely enough for three weeks of imports.

The IMF wants the government to remove food subsidies and further raise energy prices to meet a revenue shortfall. Analysts say that will cause inflation to increase further, which will put more political pressure on Sharif and will help Khan’s anti-government campaign.
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Senior Taliban leaders rarely publicly disagree with official policies issued by the group’s supreme leader, but there are signs of increasing internal dissent as the Taliban struggles to gain international recognition after one and a half years in power.

The Taliban’s acting defense minister, Mullah Mohammad Yaqoob, in an event marking the 34th anniversary of the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, said Wednesday that the Taliban “should always listen to the legitimate demands of the people.”

Yaqoob’s remarks echoed those of other Taliban leaders who, in recent days, have issued rare public criticisms.

A key Taliban figure, Sirajuddin Haqqani, the acting interior minister, criticized the group’s leaders Sunday for “monopolizing power,” though he did not name anyone. But his remarks were seen as a criticism of the movement’s reclusive supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada. He added that “this situation can no more be tolerated.”

In recent months, Akhundzada issued numerous decrees banning women and girls from universities and working with NGOs, which brought about internal and international condemnation.

Shinkai Karokhail, a former member of the Wolesi Jirga, the lower house of Afghanistan’s parliament, told VOA that some of the Taliban leaders are ‘frustrated’ because the supreme leader “wants all decisions to be his own and expects everyone to obey his decisions.”

She added that, therefore, Taliban leaders have made their dissent public.

The Taliban’s recent harsh policies “do not do them good,” said Karokhail, adding that “people in Afghanistan aren’t happy. The international community is frustrated, and their government is yet not recognized.”

The Taliban seized power in August 2021, but no country has yet recognized them as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

The international community demands that the Taliban grant women the right to education and work before opening any negotiations.

After seizing power, the Taliban have imposed steadily repressive measures on women, including banning them from education, work, traveling long-distance without a close male relative, and going to parks and gyms.

Taliban infighting

Karokhail added that some Taliban leaders want their government to be recognized, receive international aid, be open for foreign investment, and make people happy “so they can stay in power.”

Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan, Earl Anthony Wayne told VOA that there are factions in the group who see the importance of engagement with the international community. However, he said those Taliban are “not in a position to control the decision-making right now with the Taliban government.”

But that could be changing.

The rare criticism by the Taliban’s powerful leader Haqqani suggests a power struggle among the Taliban, said Peter Bergen, vice president for global studies and a fellow at New America, a nonpartisan Washington think tank.

Bergen told VOA that “the comments by Sirajuddin Haqqani seem to imply that he is settling himself up as the overall leader of the Taliban.”

He added that by controlling the ministry of interior and the intelligence service, Haqqani is in a “strong position” to challenge the Taliban’s leadership.

“The Haqqanis have always been somewhat distinct from the core Taliban because their power base is in eastern and central Afghanistan, not in southern Afghanistan,” said Bergen.

International condemnation

Kate Bateman, a senior expert on Afghanistan for the U.S. Institute of Peace, told VOA that the Taliban bans on women’s university education and working in NGOs brought about “a unified international condemnation.”

She added that the Taliban leadership was “not expecting this kind of reaction.”

Bateman said that the international community still expects a rollback on the bans, which “could open the door to more dialogue.”

But “as long as that is the situation in Afghanistan,” he said, “the whole world will find it difficult to have a relationship with the Taliban government.”

This story originated in VOA’s Afghan Service.
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A top State Department official said the United States was prepared to work with Pakistan as the country assessed the renewed threat of terrorism. However, the official would not say whether Washington would support any Pakistani action against terrorist hideouts in Afghanistan.

Counselor Derek Chollet, one of the highest-ranking officials at the State Department, was in Islamabad on Thursday. During the visit, which was originally expected to last two days, Chollet met Pakistan’s army chief, General Asim Munir, and the country’s foreign secretary.

Chollet’s second visit in five months came as Pakistan faces near daily deadly terror attacks. A massive blast at a mosque in Pakistan’s northwestern city of Peshawar last month killed more than 100 people, mostly police personnel.

Calling that a “significant” attack, Chollet said he was not ready to make a judgment about Pakistan’s security situation.

Instead, he said Washington was “trying to wrap its head around” how the threat had been evolving in Pakistan and was “very much following their [Pakistan’s] lead in terms of both the investigation and where that leads and ensuring that those who conducted these attacks are held accountable.”

Although an arm of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), an ideological offshoot of the Afghan Taliban, took responsibility for the Peshawar attack, TTP’s central spokesperson denied involvement. Still, the banned militant group has been behind most of the recent terrorist activity in the country.

Islamabad accuses the Afghan Taliban of allowing the TTP to use its territory to plan attacks on Pakistan, a charge the Afghan regime rejects. TTP leadership also denies working from Afghanistan, instead claiming the group is attacking Pakistan from within.

Without naming Afghanistan, Pakistan’s National Security Council said early this year, “No country will be allowed to provide sanctuaries and facilitation to terrorists, and Pakistan reserves all rights in that respect to safeguard her people.”

Right of defense

Following the Pakistani NSC statement, U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said that “Pakistan has a right to defend itself” against terrorism.

Responding to VOA, Chollet would not say what kind of Pakistani counterterrorism action, including cross-border military strikes, Washington would support.

“I’m not going to get into hypotheticals about what we would support or not. … I don’t want to say … publicly … how that [Price’s statement] would apply in hypothetical situations,” Chollet said.

Instead, he said he was talking to his Pakistani counterparts about their needs and the help Washington could provide.

Last year, Pakistan conducted military strikes against alleged terrorist hideouts in Afghanistan, while the U.S. killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in a drone strike in Kabul.

Chollet’s visit came as Pakistan and the U.S. engaged in Washington in a second round of midlevel defense talks. The first round was held in Pakistan in January 2021.

In Thursday’s weekly news briefing, Mumtaz Zahra Baloch, spokesperson for Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said, “Pakistan is encouraged by the positive momentum in our relations with the United States and the engagement that is taking place both here and in Washington.”

U.S. military assistance to Pakistan, however, has been stalled since 2017, and Chollet made no announcement about a possible resumption.

As Pakistan negotiates with the International Monetary Fund to avoid defaulting on external loans and its foreign reserves plummet to dangerously low levels with inflation skyrocketing, the State Department counselor said the situation was “worrisome” for Washington.

Pakistan owes the largest chunk of its foreign loans to China, its closest ally. Chollet said that while debt owed to China was a concern around the world, the U.S. was not asking Pakistan to choose between Beijing and Washington.

“[We] talk to them about some of the perils we see in the closer relations with the PRC [People’s Republic of China] and the opportunities we think that come from closer relations with us and other like-minded countries. And frankly, they see that,” he said.

Despite Pakistan’s economic crisis, political instability and worsening security situation, Chollet noted ties with the country mattered.

“Not every ally, partner, is equal, but all of our relationships matter,” he said.

Chollet said Washington had learned “the hard way” in the past few years that there was “no problem out there that we can solve alone.”
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China and Iran have urged mutual neighbor Afghanistan to end restrictions on women’s work and education.

The call came in a joint statement Thursday issued at the close of a visit to Beijing by Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, during which the two sides affirmed close economic and political ties and their rejection of Western standards of human rights and democracy.

Since taking over Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban have banned women and girls from universities and schools after the sixth grade and forced out those in elected offices and other prominent positions.

“The two sides … called on the Afghan rulers to form an inclusive government in which all ethnic groups and political groups actually participate, and cancel all discriminatory measures against women, ethnic minorities and other religions,” the statement said, adding that the U.S. and its NATO allies “should be responsible for the current situation in Afghanistan.”

The U.S. had backed Afghanistan’s elected government against the Taliban, but it withdrew amid the rising costs and dwindling domestic support for a government that was unable to counter a Taliban revival.

Protests fueled by Amini’s death

The call for women’s rights is notable coming from Iran’s hardline Shiite Muslim regime, which has been challenged by months of protests sparked by the death of a young woman in police custody for allegedly violating clothing requirements.

The country’s theocracy has executed at least four men since the demonstrations began in September over the death of Mahsa Amini. All have faced internationally criticized, rapid, closed-door trials.

The bulk of the China-Iran joint statement emphasized strong political and economic ties, the quest for peace and justice in the Middle East, and denuclearization – in spite of Tehran’s alleged drive to produce atomic weapons.

In a meeting earlier with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Raisi expressed support for China’s crackdown on democracy in Hong Kong and claim to self-ruling democratic Taiwan.

China and Iran portray themselves, alongside Moscow, as counterweights to American power, and have given tacit support – and in Iran’s case, material support – to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

“China supports Iran in safeguarding national sovereignty” and “resisting unilateralism and bullying,” Xi said in a statement carried by Chinese state TV on its website.

Xi and Raisi attended the signing of 20 cooperation agreements, including some on trade and tourism, the Chinese government said. Those followed a 25-year strategy agreement signed in 2021 to cooperate in developing oil, industry and other fields.

China is one of the biggest buyers of Iranian oil and is a major source of investment.

Iran has struggled for years under trade and financial sanctions imposed by Washington and other Western governments. The U.S. government cut off Iran’s access to the network that connects global banks in 2018.
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Indian tax officials carried out searches of British Broadcasting Corporation offices in New Delhi and Mumbai on Wednesday for a second consecutive day.

The action, which the government has called a tax “survey,” has been slammed by opposition parties, global media watchdogs and Indian media organizations as an attempt to silence dissent and intimidate the media.

The searches began weeks after the broadcaster aired a documentary on communal riots that swept through the western state of Gujarat in 2002, killing at least a 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, when Prime Minister Narendra Modi was its head.

The two-part documentary, “India: The Modi Question,” which raised issues about Modi’s actions and claims he was “directly responsible” for the “climate of impunity” that enabled the violence, was denounced by India’s foreign ministry as “propaganda.” It said “the bias, lack of objectivity and continuing colonial mindset is blatantly visible” in the coverage.

The BBC has called the documentary “rigorously researched.” It was not aired in India, and the government blocked all videos and tweets sharing links to it using emergency powers under its information technology laws. In recent weeks, members of Modi’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party have accused the BBC of targeting India at a time when the country’s stature is rising globally.

The searches, which began Tuesday, continued overnight and into Wednesday. The Income Tax department has not made any official comment, but the Press Trust of India said that officials were making copies of electronic and other financial data. The BBC has said that it is cooperating fully.

The income tax survey was not vindictive or “done out of a sense of pique,” Kanchan Gupta, senior adviser at the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, told the Times Now news channel.

Domestic media reports have quoted unnamed sources saying the broadcaster was in “deliberate non-compliance” with its regulations.

U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said Washington is aware of the search but is not in a position to offer any judgment, adding only that “we support the importance of a free press around the world.”

“We continue to highlight the importance of freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief as human rights that contribute to strengthening democracies around the world,” Price told reporters on Tuesday. “It has strengthened this democracy here in this country. It has strengthened India’s democracy.”

Since the searches began, there has been a chorus of criticism about the action against Britain’s public broadcaster, with several pointing out that Indian authorities have used tax investigations as a pretext to target news outlets that are critical.

In a Wednesday editorial, the Indian Express newspaper said given the Modi government’s treatment of critical media and civil society, the latest action against the BBC “smacks of bullying and an attempt to intimidate.”

The Press Club of India said in a statement Tuesday that the action appears to be a “clear cut case of vendetta, coming within weeks of a documentary aired by the BBC.” It said that it “will damage the reputation and image of India as the world’s largest democracy.”

India’s press freedom ranking fell from 142 to 150 in the 2022 World Press Freedom Index by global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, in which one is considered most free. 
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The chief diplomat in Afghanistan’s ruling Islamist Taliban has rejected as baseless Russia’s allegations that thousands of Islamic State militants have gathered in northern Afghanistan and threaten the stability of the Central Asian region.  

“How come thousands of such people are concentrated in one place and still no one can see them or is aware of them?” Taliban Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi asked Wednesday in a televised speech at a ceremony in Kabul marking the 34th anniversary of the Soviet troop withdrawal from the country.  

“Everyone is welcome here, see the solution with their own eyes and discuss with us if they have any concerns to share. But leveling baseless allegations to malign and add to the sufferings of this nation reeling from decades of war must come to an end,” Muttaqi said.

The Taliban response comes a day after a top Russian army general said that “extremist groups” had gained a “foothold” in Afghanistan, becoming “the biggest threat” to stability in the region.

Russia’s chief of the Joint Staff of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, Colonel General Anatoly Sidorov, described al-Qaida and the Afghan branch of Islamic State, known as Islamic State Khorasan, or IS-K, as “the most dangerous” of the groups in question.  

“The number of members of the Islamic State’s Afghan branch, Wilayat Khorasan (IS-K), has significantly increased to about 6,500, with up to 4,000 militants concentrated along Tajikistan’s southern border in the [Afghan] provinces of Badakhshan, Kunduz, and Takhar,” Russian official media quoted Sidorov as saying.  

The Russian allegations came on the same day Taliban special forces raided an IS-K hideout in the Afghan capital, killing three militants and capturing one.  

A suicide bombing outside Moscow’s diplomatic mission in Kabul last September killed at least two embassy staffers and four Afghan visa-seekers. IS-K claimed responsibility.  

The terror group has also targeted Pakistan’s embassy in the Afghan capital and a Chinese-run hotel in recent weeks.

The Taliban have lately enhanced the security of embassies and repeatedly dismissed the threat posed by IS-K, saying their forces have significantly degraded the group’s presence in the country.

The United States also questions Taliban claims of degrading IS-K’s presence in Afghanistan and describes the terror group as a “dangerous” Islamic State regional affiliate.
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More than six months after the United States killed al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in an airstrike in Kabul, Afghanistan, the terror group’s leadership appears to have quietly passed to his heir apparent in Iran.

A new report from the United Nations, based on member state intelligence, concludes Saif al-Adel “is now the de facto leader of al-Qaida, representing continuity for now.”

Al-Qaida itself has been quiet about the status of its leadership following the July 31 strike that killed al-Zawahiri. The report points to two reasons for the silence.

Al-Adel’s leadership “cannot be declared because of al-Qaida’s sensitivity to Afghan Taliban concerns not to acknowledge the death of [Ayman] al-Zawahiri in Kabul and [al-Adel’s] presence in the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the report states.

“His location raises questions that have a bearing on al-Qaida’s ambitions to assert leadership of a global movement in the face of challenges,” including from its rival, the Islamic State terror group, the report adds.

Western intelligence agencies, including those in the United States, have long viewed al-Adel as a likely successor to al-Zawahiri, describing the former Egyptian special forces officer as a capable commander with vast operational experience in multiple locations.

Starting in the early 1990s, al-Adel was part of a team that provided military and intelligence training to fighters in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sudan.

He also helped train members of al-Qaida’s Egyptian affiliate, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, and Somalis who battled U.S. forces in Mogadishu from 1992 to 1994.

The U.S. indicted al-Adel in 1998 for his role in planning the deadly bombings of the U.S. embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, which killed 224 people and wounded thousands more.

Al-Adel is also a long-time member of al-Qaida’s senior leadership council, the Majlis al-Shura, as well as a senior member of the group’s Hittin Committee, charged with governing al-Qaida’s global operations.

Initial information shared by U.N. member states seems to indicate al-Adel’s tenure at the helm of al-Qaida has been somewhat smooth.

The report notes that al-Qaida’s propaganda efforts have become “more sophisticated and prolific” in recent months.

And some member states indicate al-Adel has been able to solidify or increase control over some al-Qaida affiliates.

In particular, at least one member state intelligence agency said al-Adel is giving “direct instructions” to Hurras al-Din, one of al-Qaida’s Syria affiliates, which is run by his son-in-law.

But current and former Western counterterrorism officials have long questioned the extent to which any al-Qaida leader could run the group from Iran.

“This is challenging for al-Qaida,” a former Western counterterrorism official told VOA, speaking on the condition of anonymity following the death of former al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

“Do the Iranians let him leave?” the former official asked. “It’s sort of tough to be the leader of al-Qaida while stuck in a gilded cage.”

Some U.S. officials, however, argue Iran is likely more than willing to help al-Qaida, despite significant religious differences between Iran’s Shia regime and the terror group’s origins as a Sunni group.

“Al-Qaida has a new home base. It is the Islamic Republic of Iran,” then-U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo warned in early 2021.

“Tehran has allowed al-Qaida to fundraise, to freely communicate with al-Qaida members around the world, and to perform many other functions that were previously directed from Afghanistan or Pakistan,” Pompeo said at the time, labeling Iran as al-Qaida’s new “operational headquarters.”

Other U.S. officials have long argued that Iran’s relationship with al-Qaida is and has been transactional in nature – that Tehran will help al-Qaida when it suits the leadership’s purposes and crack down on the terror group other times.

For now, the latest public assessments from the United States suggest al-Adel may be intent on recreating al-Qaida as a fighting force to be feared, though getting there will not be without challenges.

Al-Adel “is probably interested in improving al-Qaida’s battlefield capabilities, though the decentralized organizational structure is likely to impede his ability to make rapid changes,” the Defense Department inspector general said in a report in November, citing information from the Defense Intelligence Agency.

The U.S. has been offering a $10 million reward for information leading to al-Adel’s capture or conviction.
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Tax officials in India searched the British Broadcasting Corporation’s offices Tuesday in New Delhi and Mumbai, weeks after the Indian government called a BBC documentary about Prime Minister Narendra Modi “propaganda.”

The documentary, “India: The Modi Question,” focuses on communal riots that swept through the western state of Gujarat in 2002, killing at least a 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, when Modi was its head.

In a statement on Twitter, the BBC said it was “fully cooperating” with income tax authorities, who are “currently” in the BBC offices in New Delhi and Mumbai.

“We hope to have the situation resolved as quickly as possible,” the BBC said.

Domestic media reports said authorities seized the phones of BBC employees. 

Gaurav Bhatia, a spokesman for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), called the action a “tax survey.”

“If you have been following the law of the country, if you have nothing to hide, why be afraid of an action that is according to the law?” he told reporters.

Accusing the BBC of having a “tainted and black history of working with malice against India,” Bhatia told reporters at a press conference, “It would not be wrong to say that it is the most corrupt and ridiculous corporation in the world.”

He said media outlets that “have a hidden agenda” and “spew venom” cannot be tolerated in the country.

The documentary angered the BJP and Modi’s supporters, who questioned why the broadcaster chose a subject that dates back two decades.  

The documentary highlights an unpublished report the BBC obtained from the British Foreign Office which according to the broadcaster raised issues over Modi’s actions during the riots, and claims he was “directly responsible” for the “climate of impunity” that enabled the violence.

In 2012, an inquiry by India’s Supreme Court exonerated Modi of any complicity in the riots, including charges that he had told police officers not to restrain the rioters.

The BBC documentary was not aired in India, but using emergency powers under its information technology laws, the government blocked videos and tweets sharing links to it. Police scrambled to halt screenings arranged by some student groups on university campuses and detained several students in connection with the screenings.  

India’s Foreign Ministry said the film “lacked objectivity” and called it a “propaganda piece designed to push a particularly discredited narrative.” The BBC had said the documentary was “rigorously researched” and that it had featured a range of opinions, including responses from people in the BBC.

Organizations representing media groups in India expressed concern at Tuesday’s search of the BBC offices.

The Editors Guild of India said the move mirrored similar actions against other news organizations such as NewsClick, Newslaundry and Dainik Bhaskar, whose coverage was perceived to be critical of the government. 

In a statement, the guild said the raids were a “continuation of a trend of using government agencies to intimidate and harass press organizations that are critical of government policies or the ruling establishment” and that the trend “undermines constitutional democracy.”

Opposition parties also criticized the action. 

“First came the BBC documentary, it was banned. Now, I-T has raided BBC.” “Undeclared Emergency,” the opposition Congress Party tweeted.

“As hosts of G-20 what we are telling the world that rather than an emerging great power we are an insecure power,” Manish Tewari, a member of the Congress Party and former information minister, tweeted.

Media watchdogs and critics have raised concerns about press freedom in India. Last month, the Committee to Protect Journalists said that ordering social media platforms to block the BBC documentary constitutes “an attack on the free press that flagrantly contradicts the country’s stated commitment to democratic ideals.”

India’s press freedom ranking fell from 142 in 2021 to 150 last year in the 2022 World Freedom Index by global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders. 
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Taliban security forces in Afghanistan have raided an Islamic State “hideout” in the capital, Kabul, and killed several members of the militant group, according to officials.

The Monday night counterterrorism action came a week after Saudi Arabia evacuated all its diplomats and embassy staff in the country reportedly citing security concerns.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid announced a few details of the raid in the Kart-e-Now residential area shortly after it was carried out. But he has since not shared new information.  

Mujahid claimed the operation had swiftly killed “some key Daesh members, including foreigners.” He used a local name for the Afghan branch of the terrorist group, known as Islamic State-Khorasan or IS-K.

“This was an important Daesh group hideout, which was involved in the recent attacks and crimes in Kabul,” the Taliban spokesman said. It was not possible to verify the claims independently. 

IS-K has staged several high-profile deadly bomb attacks and other raids in Afghanistan in recent months, targeting embassies of both Russia and Pakistan and a Chinese-run hotel in downtown Kabul.

Earlier this month, some 19 Saudi diplomats and other embassy staff were airlifted from the country amid reports IS-K was planning a possible truck bombing against foreign missions in Kabul, according to diplomatic sources familiar with the matter.

Taliban spokesman Mujahid insisted at the time the Saudi departure was a temporary move and not related to security concerns. He told Afghan media “some employees of Saudi Arabia’s embassy have departed for training and will return soon.”

It is not immediately known whether Saudi diplomats have since returned to Kabul nor has Riyadh commented on the status of its Afghan diplomatic mission or the supposed threat facing it.

An IS-K suicide bomber blew himself up outside the Russian embassy last September, killing two staff and four Afghan visa-seekers. Later in December, the chief Pakistani diplomat narrowly survived an assassination attempt by a gunman allegedly from the terror group. That attack came just days before two alleged IS-K gunmen raided and injured five Chinese guests at the hotel in Kabul.

The Taliban have lately enhanced the security of embassies and repeatedly dismissed the threat posed by IS-K, saying their forces have significantly degraded the group’s presence in the country.

The United States continues to question Taliban claims, however. Washington sees IS-K as a “dangerous” Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan.

“We’ve seen the lethality of ISIS-K,” State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters in Washington on Monday, using an acronym for the Afghan branch of the terror group.

“President Biden has made a solemn commitment to remain focused on ISIS-K and, if necessary, to take action against it if we see plots emanate that are targeting the United States and our partners,” Price said.

Most countries, including the United States, closed their embassies in Afghanistan in August 2021 when the Taliban seized power from the internationally backed government after a 20-year insurgency as American and NATO troops withdrew from the war-torn South Asian nation.

Foreign governments have not formally recognized the Taliban government, citing human rights and terrorism-related concerns.

While Western nations and many others relocated their embassies to Qatar’s capital, Doha, after the Taliban takeover, several regional countries retained their diplomatic missions in Kabul. They include China, Russia, Pakistan, India, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan.    
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Senior leaders of Afghanistan’s ruling Islamist Taliban have recently resorted to rare public criticism of each other, reigniting internal rift speculations over whether girls should be allowed to receive an education.

The war of words began last Saturday when the influential Taliban interior minister, Sirajuddin Haqqani, lashed out at his leadership for “monopolizing” power, though he did not name anyone.

“Our views and thoughts have dominated us to such an extent that power monopolization and defamation of the entire [ruling] system have become common,” Haqqani told a religious gathering in his native southeastern Khost region. “This situation can no more be tolerated.”

The minister added that the Taliban administration should desist from adopting policies that would drive a wedge between “the [ruling] system and the people, allowing others to exploit it to defame Islam.”

Haqqani’s remarks seemingly were directed at the Taliban supreme leader or emir, Hibatullah Akhundzada. The reclusive leader ordered the banning of Afghan women from most workplaces and all education since his hardline group seized power in August 2021. Akhundzada’s edicts are supported by a handful of his close associates.

On Sunday, chief Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid pushed back on Haqqani’s criticism without naming him.

“Our Islamic ethics bind us to not publicly criticize or vilify the emir, minister or a government official,” Mujahid told a gathering in Kabul in a speech aired by Taliban-run official television. “You must approach him and convey your criticism privately and safely, so no one else will hear it.”

Separately, the deputy Taliban minister of justice, Abdul Ghani Faiq, also cautioned officials against undermining the ruling dispensation. He spoke at a graduation ceremony of defense attorneys in Kabul.

“If he is an employer, or employee, or anyone else, or if he is in a ministerial position in the Islamic Emirate, and then he moves against the Islamic Emirate, this is not tolerable,” Faiq was reported as saying by the Afghan media. He used the official title for the Taliban government.

Haqqani is among Taliban leaders who support lifting the ban on girls’ education, according to foreign diplomats who have interacted with the interior minister.

“Now that we are in power, it is our responsibility to heal the wounds of our people and bring them relief. … If we do so, our government will last longer,” Haqqani said in his speech.

The interior minister is on the U.S. list of most wanted men for plotting terrorism against American nationals. His so-called Haqqani network of militants staged high-profile deadly attacks in support of the Taliban insurgence against the United States and NATO troops in Afghanistan for almost 20 years until the Taliban retook control of the country 18 months ago.

The international community has refused to grant legitimacy to the Taliban administration, citing bans on women and other human rights concerns.

“What is clear is that a reform movement must gather force from within the Taliban to get Afghanistan to open girls’ schools and let women back at work; all Islamic rights,” Torek Farhadi, a former Afghan official, and political analyst, told VOA in written comments while responding to questions on the public exchange of criticism between Taliban leaders.

“No one else can spearhead this but the Taliban themselves, and time is of the essence, because teenage girls have lost more than a year, and a general mood of hopelessness encourages the educated youth to migrate out of the country,” Farhadi added.

Taliban leaders have long dismissed reports of any internal rifts as Western media propaganda.

Akhundzada has refused to meet foreign delegates and rarely leaves the southern Kandahar city, regarded as the spiritual headquarters and birthplace of the Taliban.
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Economic hardship and media restrictions stemming from the 2021 return to power of Afghanistan’s Taliban have reportedly forced approximately 34% of radio stations to shutter operations in the country, rendering hundreds of men and women jobless.

The Afghan Independent Journalists Union (AIJU), a Kabul-based local media monitor, released the figures Monday to mark World Radio Day.

AIJU President Hujatullah Mujadidi told VOA that 345 radio channels were operating in the country before the Taliban takeover in August 2021, employing nearly 5,000 people, 25% of them women.

But 117 stations have since ceased broadcasting due to economic problems, Mujadidi said, adding that 1,900 people, more than half of them women, subsequently lost their jobs.

The remaining 228 stations employ more than 1,800 workers, including a few dozen women.

International sanctions on Taliban leaders and the suspension of financial assistance have deepened economic troubles in the largely aid-dependent country, multiplying challenges facing the Afghan media industry.

Critics say increasing censorship and alleged abuses of journalists by Taliban authorities have severely undermined the Afghan free press.

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan reported last November that more than 200 journalists had suffered “arbitrary arrest, ill-treatment, threats, and intimidation” since the Taliban retook the country.

Hundreds of Afghan journalists have since fled to neighboring Pakistan and other countries, fearing reprisals for their critical reporting while the Taliban were waging a deadly insurgency against the United States-backed former Afghan government in Kabul.

Global media watchdog Reporters Without Borders says within the first three months of the Taliban takeover in 2021, 43% of Afghan media outlets were shuttered, and 84% of female journalists lost their jobs.

Taliban authorities reject the accusations of abuse and blame the closures on lack of funding. Critics question that assertion.

The Taliban recently blocked access to VOA’s Pashto and Dari sites and the websites for Azadi Radio, run by VOA’s sister network, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Taliban officials have not yet commented on the allegations they blocked the VOA sites.

On Sunday, chief Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said at a televised event in Kabul that foreign media outlets that “only publish negative news” and “don’t reflect [Taliban] achievements” would not be allowed to operate. He did not elaborate.

The Islamist rulers are also under fire for their sweeping restrictions on Afghan women, who are barred from receiving an education and from most workplaces in the country.

No foreign government has yet granted legitimacy to the Taliban regime over human rights concerns, especially the treatment of Afghan women. 
…

Working for global nonprofits in the early 2000s, Padma Priya and her colleagues Rakesh Kamal and Tarun Nirwan noticed that the regular news cycle didn’t always reflect day-to-day life.

“We were seeing these very real issues being played out and people and communities being impacted, but their stories were not really coming out and not getting the prominence that they deserve,” Priya told VOA.

So in 2018, the team launched Suno India to bring attention to underreported stories in a format easily accessible to broad audiences: Podcasts.

“We were all avid podcast listeners, and we knew that podcasts can make an impact, can get through to people, can give a break from the screen,” she said.

At that time, few outlets in India were producing audio journalism. With all FM news stations in the country controlled by the government-run All India Radio, podcasts offered a platform not previously available to independent journalists.   

Despite coming from a print background — Priya has worked for outlets including The Hindu and The Wire — the journalist and her co-founders found the medium easy to work with.

It’s a format that helped them bring diverse voices into the newsroom and start a fellowship for early and mid-career journalists.

Another unexpected benefit: Sources are often more willing to participate when they don’t have to appear on camera.

“I saw that this was a medium which gives an anonymity to people,” Priya told VOA. “And the kind of topics we have chosen, and we continue to choose, sometimes are sensitive. Not everybody is willing to put their face in front of a camera, but they’re willing to lend their voice.”

Broad reach

Suno India covers issues including adoption, tuberculosis and rare diseases. The team also reports on climate change, the economy, and what they call “cyber democracy”—the intersection of digital rights and democracy.

To date, they’ve produced about 25 series, and they broadcast in English, Hindi and Telugu.

Most listeners come to the podcast to understand issues in their communities, but Priya said policymakers, doctors, and other stakeholders also listen in for factual reporting on bigger societal problems.

Despite their broad reach, podcasts remain an “intimate form of communication and storytelling,” said Mary Fitzgerald, director of expression for Open Society Foundations, an organization that provides funding and other support to independent groups, including journalists.

Audio portrays nuance in a way that print journalism cannot, creating an experience that comes across as both vivid and personal, said Fitzgerald.

In India, podcasts have helped outlets like Suno India to reach communities and cover underreported stories. But in more repressive countries, the medium can play an additional role.

“Podcasts are much harder to censor. They’re much harder to target the makers of,” Fitzgerald told VOA.

Speaking broadly about how podcasting can help media globally, Fitzgerald said, “You can podcast from one location and reach audiences that might be in a very repressive environment. And you can cut through the propaganda or censorship that those populations might be subjected to.”

The medium can also help journalists to gather and share news when it is difficult to have reporters out in the field.

When protests erupted in India in 2019 over a new citizenship law and the internet was restricted in certain areas of the country, the team at Suno India used the messaging app WhatsApp to connect with sources.

Reporters sent questions as voice notes that their sources could download and respond to after they’d reached areas with internet access.

“We realized there was a lot of power in using WhatsApp voice messages in this way,” said Priya.

The method proved useful again during the pandemic lockdowns when millions of migrant workers fled cities for remote villages.

With in-person meetings no longer an option, Suno India relied on WhatsApp to conduct interviews and get the news out.

Priya and her team connected with farmers in rural regions who, during harvest season in March and April 2020, were not permitted in the fields due to the lockdowns. Through voice notes, the farmers were able to share their challenges and coping methods with podcast listeners.

Similarly, the team was able to connect with doctors in Kashmir when high-speed internet bans were instituted after Delhi revoked the region’s autonomous status.

“Of course, the best thing would be to go there and sit in front of a person and report, but that’s not always possible,” Priya said. “For us during those times, [WhatsApp messaging] seemed like the only way to get those voices in and keep the reporting going.”

For independent news outlets in India, foreign funding is prohibited, and finding the financial means to keep reporting can be a challenge.

Priya said just as it’s the responsibility of journalists to produce factual, well-researched content, it’s the listeners’ responsibility to support their local newsrooms.

“We’ve seen that not investing in the right kind of media means there’s going to be more misinformation. There’s going to be more propaganda. There’s going to be more fake news. And that has direct repercussions on government officials getting elected, on democracy itself, and on civil liberties,” Priya said.
…

Fifteen years ago, Noorullah Stanikzai returned to his home province of Logar to open a radio station broadcasting cultural and educational programs.

But the future of his station, Zinat FM, has seemed uncertain since the Taliban took power in August 2021.

“I am seriously considering closing the radio,” said Stanikzai, 48, adding that remaining open means having to work in a “challenging environment.”

“For now, the radio is operating, but we might not be able to continue for long. It is possible that today, tomorrow, or a month later, we close,” said Stanikzai.

Zinat FM is one of three local stations still broadcasting in Afghanistan’s Logar province, south of Kabul. But all of them face political and economic challenges, Stanikzai said.

“There is a ban on entertainment programs. We face serious economic problems,” he said. “Like other [private] media outlets [in Afghanistan], we can’t have political shows that we had before the Taliban, or criticize the authorities.”

It’s a pattern seen across Afghanistan, where Taliban restrictions on how media operate — including directives on how to cover certain issues, and bans on entertainment and women’s voices — has made journalism a difficult industry to navigate.

The media watchdog Reporters Without Border has said of the 543 media outlets working in Afghanistan before the Taliban takeover, only 312 remained three months later.

In December, the Taliban also banned FM radio broadcasts of Voice of America and Azadi Radio, which is part of VOA’s sister network Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty.

Gul Mohammad Graan, president of the Afghan chapter of the South Asian Association of Reporters Club and Journalists Forum, told VOA that most of the people in Afghanistan do not have access to the internet, and most areas do not have electricity.

Because of that, he said, “radio is still the most popular medium in the country.”

Even with many stations shutting, “People still have access to radio channels and get their information on the current affairs in the country,” Graan said.

Broadcast changes

Before the Taliban takeover, Zinat FM was broadcasting around the clock, but now it has only 12-hour programming, Stanikzai said.

The situation used to be better for media, he said. “We had many political shows. We could criticize the government authorities, and access to information was better.”

Taliban officials have told journalists in Logar and other provinces that they have the right to cover any issue they want. But they are also warned not to air any news that would weaken the regime.

“Like other news outlets, we do not have the freedom to cover politics or criticize the government… though the Taliban say that ‘we support freedom of speech and press,’” said Stanikzai.

Journalists elsewhere in Afghanistan have said that the Taliban want the media to only air issues the group wants to be covered.

Another factor affecting broadcasts is the ban on all music, said Stanikzai. “They even want us not to air those radio transitions and commercials with music.”

“First, they told us orally that we should not air music or female voices. We requested an official statement. Then they sent us an official notice not to air music and women’s voices,” he said.

Limited programming, decreased revenue

With many issues now off limits, Stanikzai’s station mostly broadcasts educational, health, and religious programs.

But he said, those shows, especially on education, are needed now more than ever as girls are barred from going to school.

Because of the political and economic problems — advertising revenue has sharply declined — Stanikzai’s radio station lost eight employees, including two women.

“We run the radio with only four people,” said Stanikzai. “We were paying about $200 to $250 a month to an employee but now we are paying around $60.”

And while the station used to get around $175 to $235 for an advert broadcast twice a day, that has now dropped to $23 with the exchange rate.

But even with the shortfall, media outlets have to pay for electricity, a commercial license, and taxes.

“In the past, the government would help us. But, now, we have to pay,” he said.

A father of seven, Stanikzai said he has “lost hope” and sees “no future in journalism” in Afghanistan.

“I would probably go back to my village and start farming to feed my family,” he said.

This story originated in VOA’s Afghan service.
…

In an interview with VOA Islamabad Correspondent Sarah Zaman, the former prime minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, said security forces’ negligence allowed the Pakistani Taliban to resume its activities. He expressed hope the military would stop interfering in politics and build good relations with Washington — despite accusing it of conspiring in his ouster.
…

An enraged mob in central Pakistan stormed a police station Saturday, grabbed a detainee facing blasphemy charges and lynched him.

The incident happened in Nankana Sahib, a remote city in the most populous Punjab province of the Muslim-majority country.

Police officials said the victim, identified as Muhammad Waris, had been taken into custody for allegedly desecrating the Quran. They said news of the alleged crime outraged residents and hundreds of them later surrounded the police station, demanding the accused be handed over to them.

Overwhelmed by the large crowd, police officers fled the facility. Protesters grabbed the man and dragged him out to the street where they beat him to death. A police spokesperson later told reporters that police reinforcements were able to prevent the mob from setting the body on fire.  

Videos circulating on social media showed protesters dragging the victim’s naked body through the streets.

A provincial police statement said senior staff at the police station had been suspended for failing to prevent the mob assault and an immediate inquiry into the incident had been ordered.

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif also denounced the mob assault and ordered authorities to quickly investigate it, his office said in a statement.

“Why didn’t the police stop the violent mob? The rule of law should be ensured. No one should be allowed to influence the law,” Sharif was quoted as saying.

Sharif’s special representative for interfaith harmony, Tahir Mehmood Ashrafi, said in a statement the “inhuman torture and killing” of the suspected blasphemer was a “cruel and criminal act.”

“The Islamic Shariah and the law of Pakistan do not allow anyone to be a litigant by himself, a judge and an arbitrator by himself,” Ashrafi wrote on Twitter.

Blasphemy is a highly sensitive issue in predominantly Muslim Pakistan and the offense is punishable by death. Mere allegations of blasphemy are enough to cause riots and the killing of the accused by vigilante groups.

Suspects are often attacked and sometimes lynched by mobs. Domestic and international rights groups say allegations of blasphemy are enough to cause mob attacks and the killing of accused. Blasphemy laws are also used to fulfill personal vendettas, disputes and intimidate religious minorities.

A Sri Lankan factory manager was beaten to death by co-workers in Punjab’s industrial city of Sialkot in December 2021 after falsely accusing him of insulting Islam. A court later sentenced six men to death for lynching the foreigner.  

Saturday’s incident came nearly two weeks after Pakistan assured a meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council that it was taking steps to counter misuse of blasphemy laws.

Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Hina Rabbani Khar told the January 30 Geneva meeting the government had instituted safeguards against the misuse of the blasphemy law. She cited legal provisions calling for action against anyone falsely accusing someone of blasphemy.

Blasphemy laws in Pakistan have enabled and encouraged Islamist extremists to operate with impunity, easily targeting religious minorities or those with differing beliefs, including nonbelievers, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said in its 2022 country report.

The commission alleged the Sharif government also “weaponized the discriminatory blasphemy laws” against former Prime Minister Imran Khan and his cabinet members.

“Religious minorities, however, remain particularly vulnerable to aggression and accusations under these laws as they continue to face threats of violence in a society that has grown increasingly intolerant of religious diversity,” the report said. 
…

Residents in Indian-administered Kashmir experienced more internet shutdowns and restrictions than any other region in 2022, including Iran and Russia, a new report found.

More than a fifth of all web blackouts took place in Kashmir, according to Surfshark, a virtual private network company headquartered in Lithuania.

Its global report on internet censorship in 2022 — released mid-January — found 32 countries were hit by a total of 112 restrictions. Nearly all came during times of protest or unrest.

Kashmir ranked alongside Russia — where Moscow moved to cut access to social media and news amid its invasion of Ukraine; Iran, where blocks came amid mass protests that started in September; and India, where Surfshark documented cuts in service at times of unrest.

Overall, Asia led the world for internet disruptions, accounting for 47% of all global cases. An estimated 4.2 billion people experienced internet censorship throughout the year, Surfshark found.

The company’s Internet Censorship Tracker analyzes reports from the news media and digital rights organizations such as Netblocks and Access Now, and collects data from social media companies to document cases.

Surfshark spokesperson Gabriele Racaityte-Krasauske told VOA that in Kashmir, the internet was shut down for a total of 456 hours in 2022. “All were cases of full internet restrictions on a local level,” she said.

Kashmir has experienced restricted and blocked internet regularly since 2019, when Indian authorities revoked the region’s special autonomous status.

Data from the Home Department of Jammu and Kashmir show 49 internet suspension orders were issued last year.

Authorities have said the blocks were intended to prevent the spread of “misinformation and maintain public order” in the wake of security-related incidents and political unrest in Kashmir.

But local journalists and analysts have said the blocks are also used to prevent critical reporting in the region.

In its 2022 report Suspension of Telecom/Internet Services and Its Impact, India’s parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology said that guidelines on internet blocks needed to be established and noted that no database currently exists in the country to track such orders.

Media obstructed

The Surfshark report says that internet censorship can result in “damaging and dangerous consequences” and is an “attack” on freedom and democracy.

“When people are cut off from the internet, they can’t speak up for themselves, so it’s up to the people who have free and undisturbed internet access to let the world know about what’s happening,” Racaityte-Krasauske said. “We want our [tracker] to help raise awareness on this troubling issue and build international pressure to stop such policies.”

Journalists in Kashmir have previously told VOA that the communication blocks — along with new media policies imposed since 2019 — make it hard to cover breaking news and get access to information or official responses. They added that the outages ultimately foster an atmosphere where misinformation and rumors flourish.

The region’s longest internet shutdown lasted from Aug. 5, 2019, to Jan. 25, 2020: the months after Delhi revoked the region’s status.

Independent journalist Sumayyah Qureshi, told VOA that the 2019 shutdown made it difficult to report on what was happening inside the region at that time.

“I am sure if we had internet, I could have done better work. In the absence of the internet and calling facility, how is one supposed to call up sources or talk to victims or people?” he said.

“I couldn’t read [news] and know what was being published in Kashmir. I couldn’t even read my own stories,” said Qureshi. “The easiest way to muzzle voices is to shut the internet.”

The journalist said such blocks infringe on rights to freedom of expression and access to information.

The internet is a lifeline in an age of globalization, says Uttar Pradesh-based academic Tarushikha Sarvesh.

The assistant professor at the Advanced Centre for Women’s Studies at Aligarh Muslim University has researched experiences of women in Jammu and Kashmir.

“Many people’s livelihoods are dependent on [the internet], especially in the case of Kashmiri women. We saw that the internet shutdown led to a major loss of livelihood for them and their support system due to adverse effects on their businesses,” Sarvesh said.

The cost of internet shutdowns overall in India was estimated to be $184.3 million in 2022, according to Top10VPN, a global digital privacy and research organization.

The frequent and prolonged shutdowns significantly impacted livelihoods, particularly in business, education, and healthcare. Companies were unable to access online markets, and students were unable to access online resources and attend virtual classes.

One local entrepreneur in Srinagar, Irfan Mushtaq, told VOA that prolonged and frequent shutdowns forced him to close his software development firm and move into a new trade.

Even ordinary users in Kashmir express frustration. One resident, Ajaz Ahmad, told VOA that if the government orders an internet shutdown, they should also instruct the telecom companies not to charge consumers for the services they are unable to use.
…

 A court in Kyrgyzstan’s capital Bishkek on Thursday rescheduled for March 15 the hearing of a request by the country’s Culture Ministry to close down Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty’s local branch, called Radio Azattyk.

Radio Azattyk’s website was blocked in Kyrgyzstan in October 2022 and its bank accounts frozen under national money laundering laws, over a video report about clashes on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border in the Batken region.

According to the Culture Ministry, the coverage violates Kyrgyz media law, which bans “propaganda of war, violence and cruelty, national, religious exclusion and intolerance to other peoples and nations.” The website ban was declared “indefinite” in December 2022.

The Reporters Without Borders group condemned the Culture Ministry’s move to seek Radio Azattyk’s closure, saying the case poses “a major new obstacle to press freedom” which is “under growing pressure” in Kyrgyzstan.

Fighting on the disputed border between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan killed at least 94 people and wounded over 100 in September 2022, the deadliest clashes in years.

 
…

The bombing of a Pakistan military vehicle in a turbulent southwestern region has killed at least two army officers and injured several others.

The roadside bombing took place Friday in Kohlu, a remote district in Baluchistan province. 

A military statement said security forces were conducting an operation in the area to “deny terrorists any liberty of action” when an improvised explosive device hit a vehicle.

The slain officers included an army major and a captain. Local officials said injured troops were transported to a local hospital, where some were in “critical condition.”

No group immediately claimed responsibly for the deadly attack in a Pakistani province where ethnic Baluch insurgents regularly plot ambushes and roadside bombings against security forces. 

Kohlu is a known stronghold of separatist Baluch leader Hyrbyair Marri, who, long ago, fled Pakistan and reportedly resides in London. 

Several Baluch insurgent groups are active in the province and often claim credit for plotting ambushes, as well as bomb attacks on security forces.

Pakistan’s Baluchistan and northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa provinces have lately experienced a surge in militant attacks. Both regions line the country’s long border with Afghanistan. 

The outlawed Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibility for much of the violence in recent months.

Baluchistan, the largest Pakistani province, also borders Iran.
…

The alleged killing in India’s western Maharashtra state of a journalist who had highlighted local opposition to a huge oil refinery proposed in a rural district has raised concerns about intimidation of journalists and demands for an investigation into his death.

Shashikant Warishe died on Tuesday, a day after he was hit by a vehicle allegedly being driven by a land dealer about whom he had written an article in a Marathi language newspaper, Mahanagari Times. The incident took place in Ratnagiri district.

The journalist had accused land dealer, Pandharinath Amberkar, involvement in illegal land grabs in villages in Ratnagiri where the refinery is slated for development, and of threatening local residents opposed to its construction.

In the article, Warishe questioned why Amberkar, who was known to support the refinery’s construction, was publicizing photos of himself with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and top Maharashtra leaders on posters.

Amberkar has been arrested and is being charged with murder, according to a police official.

“Prima facie evidence too pointed to Amberkar’s intention to kill,” Ratnagiri Police Superintendent Dhananjay Kulkarni told reporters Wednesday.

“The murder in broad daylight on the same day that he published an article about the person who was allegedly driving the vehicle that rammed into him is very disturbing,” Narendra Wable, the president of the Mumbai Marathi Patrakar Sangh, the Mumbai Marathi Journalists Association, told VOA Thursday.

In recent months, 48-year-old Warishe had written a series of articles on why villagers were resisting development of the refinery in the coastal, predominantly rural district. The project was stalled for years, but the state government has said it will be revived.

Some villagers worried that waste discharged from the refinery would hurt fishing and the lush mango cultivation, for which the region is famous, resulting in loss of livelihoods.

They were also concerned about land surveys in the area, fearful that their land might be acquired. Land acquisition poses a major hurdle to large projects in India as people are reluctant to part with their land.

“Warishe used to be the voice of the people, articulating their concerns” Sadshiv Kerkar, Mahanagari Times editor in chief told VOA this week.

“He was very well-respected for the work he did and I never imagined that it would make him a target. This is obviously meant to intimidate all those who oppose the project,” he said.

Warishe had worked for the newspaper for about a decade. India has a vibrant regional language media.

Journalists have expressed concerns that the incident would have a chilling impact on reporters.

In a statement Wednesday, the Mumbai Press Club said the “brutal, public murder” brought to light the “plummeting standards of civil liberties and free speech and brazen attempt by both state and non-state players to crush any media reporting that proves to be inconvenient.”

Maharashtra media are demanding a probe into incident and have urged the government to “ensure speedy justice.” Journalists in the state wore black armbands Friday in a symbolic protest.

“We want the case to be tried in a fast-track court,” Wable said. In India’s slow-moving justice system, cases usually take years to be decided.

The Committee To Protect Journalists has also called on Indian authorities to “thoroughly investigate” all those involved in the killing and ensure they are brought to justice.

“The Maharashtra government must take steps to protect all journalists working in the state and seek accountability for those attacked or killed,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator.
…

Pakistan and the International Monetary Fund have held days of talks on reviving a stalled $6.5 billion bailout program but have failed to reach a deal to help prevent a looming default facing the South Asian nation.

The 10-day talks with the IMF delegation were “extensive” and “concluded successfully” before the visitors left the country early Friday, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar told a hurriedly convened news conference in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

Dar said his team will hold a virtual meeting with the IMF Monday after reviewing a draft memorandum on broadly agreed-to policies the IMF mission shared with his government.

An IMF statement described the talks with Pakistani officials as constructive and said “considerable progress” had been made.

However, it stressed “this mission will not result in a board discussion,” a meeting that would lead to the release of a $1.1 billion tranche critical to supporting the country’s crisis-hit $350 billion economy.

The tranche was initially expected to be disbursed in December as part of the $6.5 billion bailout package Pakistan signed with the IMF in 2019. The program is due to end in June.

The IMF must reach a staff-level agreement with Islamabad, which then requires approval by the agency’s Washington headquarters before the funds are released.

“Virtual discussions will continue in the coming days to finalize the implementation details of these policies,” the IMF said in its post-visit statement. It went on to stress the “timely and decisive” implementation of the policies was crucial for Pakistan to “successfully regain macroeconomic stability and advance its sustainable development.”

Economic experts see the IMF deal as key to preventing Pakistan from defaulting on external payment obligations and paving the way for other global lenders, including the World Bank and foreign governments, such as those of Saudi Arabia and China, to release funds.

Last year’s unprecedented summer flooding has fueled Pakistan’s economic troubles, stemming mainly from lingering political turmoil and security challenges in the wake of rising insurgent attacks.

Inflation has been raging at historic levels, the rupee has lost more than 35% against the U.S. dollar, and central bank foreign exchange reserves dipped to less than $3 billion this week — the lowest in a decade. The depleting dollar reserves have forced the government to place restrictions on imports, causing a severe industrial decline in Pakistan.

The IMF has been pushing the nuclear-armed country to broaden its low tax base, do away with tax exemptions for the export sector, and raise low gasoline, power, and natural gas prices.

The reforms would likely increase inflation to new record levels if Pakistan eventually secures the staff-level agreement with the IMF, according to experts.
…

Talks between the International Monetary Fund and cash-strapped Pakistan for the release of much-needed funds from a bailout package have ended without any official announcement.

Pakistan’s finance secretary told reporters there were outstanding issues between the two sides that needed to be resolved. He added that the IMF gave Pakistan a list of necessary steps and asked for more time to reach an agreement. 

The IMF did not issue a statement on the status of the deal at the end of the negotiations, which ran from January 31 to Thursday.

Pakistan is facing default as its debt is mounting, revenues are shrinking and foreign reserves are critically low.  

IMF staff and officials from Pakistan’s finance, petroleum and power ministries and other departments sought a way for the country to receive more than $1 billion from a $6 billion bailout program agreed to in 2019. The size of the package was increased by almost $500 million last year after Pakistan suffered devastating floods.  

The talks came after months of delays as the government, like its predecessor, reneged on reform commitments, such as increasing petroleum prices, ending subsidies to reduce the energy sector’s exorbitant debt, and increasing taxes. 

Petroleum prices, exchange rate 

To bring the IMF back to the negotiating table, Pakistan last month increased petroleum prices to an all-time high and stopped controlling the exchange rate, a measure that sent the rupee tumbling to its lowest value ever against the dollar and drove inflation to 27.6%. That was the highest reading since May 1975.

As negotiations went on, reports emerged of disagreements between the two sides on a variety of issues, including budget deficit data and plans to reduce energy sector debt, limit government expenses and increase revenue, according to media reports.  

Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif warned last week that the government faced IMF bailout conditions that were “beyond imagination.”  

Pakistan desperately needs the bailout payment as foreign reserves held by the country’s central bank dipped below $3 billion last week, according to its latest report.    

While much of Pakistan’s $23 billion in loan repayments due in this fiscal year have been rolled over, the chief of the State Bank of Pakistan told local media in late January that $3 billion must be paid by the end of the fiscal year to avoid default.  

The country is also facing a budget shortfall of $10 billion.  

Support from the IMF would usher in financial assistance from other multilateral lenders as well as friendly countries that have signaled the need for Pakistan to implement reforms.  

From staples like cooking oil and tea to fuel and machinery, Pakistan’s $350 billion economy relies heavily on imports. To save fast-depleting foreign reserves, Pakistani banks did not issue letters of credit to import goods, raw materials or machinery, slowing down economic activity and risking shortages.   

Pakistan has participated in 23 loan programs with the IMF since the country became a member in 1950. It has sought a bailout at least 13 times since the 1980s but failed to implement necessary economic reforms.  
…

Some refugees and asylum-seekers in Brussels have been spending months in between the Street of Palaces and the Small Castle — quite literally.

Unfortunately, it’s not a dream come true at the end of their fearful flight from halfway across the globe. It’s a perpetual nightmare.

Petit Chateau, which means small castle, is a government reception center that often does anything but welcome arrivals. The Rue des Palais — street of palaces — has the city’s worst squat, where the smell of urine and the prevalence of scurvy have come to symbolize how the European Union’s migration policy is failing.

They are only 2½ miles (4 kilometers) from the sleek Europa Building where EU leaders will hold a two-day summit starting Thursday to deal with migration issues that have vexed the 27 member nations for more than a decade.

Shinwari, an Afghan army captain who helped Western powers try to stave off the Taliban, now lives in a makeshift tent camp right on the canal opposite Petit Chateau.

It’s a place as desolate as it is hopeless.

“It is very cold. Some guys have different diseases and many of us are suffering from depression, because we don’t know what will happen tomorrow,” said the 31-year-old, who left behind his wife and four children, convinced that Taliban forces that took over in August 2021 would kill soldiers like him who worked with NATO countries.

“They search houses. No one’s life was safe,” Shinwari said. “They have already once told my family ‘Your son has taken refuge in an infidel country.’”

Even now, far from home, he’s too scared to be identified beyond his last name and with only the vaguest military details. He doesn’t want his face shown in photos or video, for fear the Taliban might hurt his family.

Exacerbating his plight is the reception he’s been given in the wealthy EU — largely marked by indifference, sometimes even hostility.

“Unfortunately, no one gets to hear our voices,” he said from his tent, surrounded by a half-dozen ex-members of the Afghan military.

Instead, the vocabulary of EU leaders before the summit is much more about “strengthening external borders,” “border fences” and “return procedures” than it is about immediately making life better for people like Shinwari.

And with 330,000 unauthorized attempts made to enter the EU last year — a six-year record — projecting a warm embrace for refugees doesn’t win many elections on the continent these days.

Many Afghans also look with envy at the swift measures that the EU took after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24 to grant Ukrainians temporary protection measures such as residency rights, labor market access, medical aid and social welfare assistance — things that all largely pass them by.

“The issue of Afghans and Ukrainians are the same, but they don’t get treated the same way,” Shinwari said. “When Ukrainians come here, they are provided with all the facilities … on the first day of their arrival, but we Afghans who have left our country due to security threats, we don’t get anything. It is surprising because human rights are not the same for everyone and that upsets us and makes us feel disappointed and neglected.”

EU leaders have already said that a full breakthrough on their migration policies won’t come before bloc-wide elections in June 2024.

Shinwari said he was lucky to puncture the EU’s beefed-up borders to use his right to asylum after an eight-month trek through Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia and eventually Belgium. It included beatings, arrest and escape in Iran, and hunger and fear along much of the trail.

Shinwari made it to Europe alive, “but now that I am here, I am homeless like a nomad” with a flimsy blue tent to keep out Belgium’s many rain showers, he said.

Other Afghan former soldiers settled in the Rue des Palais, where their stories of trauma, depression, drugs and violence were just as bleak.

“The situation is not good here. If the Red Cross brings food, we will have something to eat, but if not, then many don’t have anything,” said Roz Amin Khan, who fled Laghman province to arrive in Belgium two months ago.

Since arriving four months ago, Shinwari said that he had one interview with asylum processing authorities and has been waiting ever since.

The lack of help for most refugees has been driving nongovernmental organizations and volunteers to despair.

“Between the legal framework and the situation on the ground there is a world of difference,” said Clement Valentin, a legal advocacy officer at the CIRE refugee foundation. “There is this gap, and it is tough to understand — for me and for the NGOs.

“But I cannot even begin to comprehend how tough it must be for Afghans here in Belgium, or other European nations, to understand this.”

The legal sloth isn’t limited to Belgium. The EU’s Agency for Asylum said in its latest trends report of November 2022 that “the gap between applications and decisions had reached the largest extent since 2015,” and was widening still. Overall, it said, more than 920,000 cases were still pending, a 14% annual increase.

Such was the bureaucratic backlog at the Petit Chateau when Shinwari arrived, that would-be asylum-seekers had to wait sometimes for days in the rain and cold just to get in the front door. Citizens living close by brought food and set up fire pits, because the government didn’t act.

Even if the situation has improved, the physical and mental scars are easy to see, said Michel Genet, director of Doctors of the World Belgium.

“People have been through big traumas and a very difficult situation, and they expect to come here and be taken care of,” but they’re not, Genet said.

During many sleepless nights in the freezing cold, with the dull buzz of passing cars in the background, Shinwari’s thoughts drift back home.

“Sometimes I think about the future, and I think how much longer I have to live on the streets,” he said. “My mind is surrounded with problems. I think of the safety of my family and my future.”
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A bomb blast in southwestern Pakistan Sunday reportedly killed at least one soldier and injured 12 people, including civilians.

The attack targeted a military vehicle at the entrance to a security checkpoint in a highly guarded central part of Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan province, residents and officials said.

Neither provincial police nor the military’s media wing shared any details about the casualties or the nature of the Quetta blast.

The Pakistani Taliban insurgent group, also called Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan or TTP, claimed responsibility, saying one of its suicide bombers carried out the attack on a military convoy. The insurgents gave a much higher casualty toll in the ensuing blast, but they often release inflated details about such attacks.  

Rescue workers confirmed at least five passersby were injured in the attack and transported to a nearby civilian hospital.

The attack comes days after a massive bomb explosion ripped through a packed mosque in Peshawar, the capital of northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, killing nearly 100 worshipers and injuring more than 150 others.

The Peshawar bombing killed and injured mostly members of the province police. Pakistani authorities said a suicide bomber disguised as a police officer had blown himself up inside the mosque, housed in the provincial police headquarters.  

No group has claimed responsibility for the Peshawar carnage. Officials blamed TTP but the insurgents denied involvement.
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Pushing her son on a swing at a playground on a sunny winter’s day in Madrid, former Afghan prosecutor Obaida Sharar expresses relief that she found asylum in Spain after fleeing Afghanistan shortly after the Taliban took over. 

Sharar, who arrived in Madrid with her family, is one of 19 female prosecutors to have found asylum in the country after being left in limbo in Pakistan without official refugee status for up to a year after the Taliban’s return to power. 

She feels selfish being happy while her fellow women suffer, she said. 

“Most Afghan women and girls that remain in Afghanistan don’t have the right to study, to have a social life or even go to a beauty salon,” Sharar said. “I cannot be happy.” 

Women’s freedoms in her home country were abruptly curtailed in 2021 with the arrival of a government that enforces a strict interpretation of Islam. 

The Taliban administration has banned most female aid workers and last year stopped women and girls from attending high school and university. 

Sharar’s work and that of her female peers while they lived in Afghanistan was dangerous. Female judges and prosecutors were threatened and became the target of revenge attacks as they undertook work overseeing the trial and conviction of men accused of gender crimes, including rape and murder. 

She was part of a group of 32 women judges and prosecutors that left Afghanistan only to be stuck in Pakistan for up to a year trying to find asylum. 

A prosecutor, who gave only her initials as S.M. due to fears over her safety and who specialized in gender violence and violence against children said, “I was the only female prosecutor in the province … I received threats from Taliban members and the criminals who I had sent to prison.” 

Now she and her family are also in Spain. 

Many of the women have said they felt abandoned by Western governments and international organizations. 

Ignacio Rodriguez, a Spanish lawyer and president of Bilbao-based 14 Lawyers, a non-governmental organization which defends prosecuted lawyers, said the women had been held up as symbols of democratic success only to be discarded. 

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said it was not in a position to comment on specific cases. 

“The Government of Pakistan has not agreed to recognize newly arriving Afghans as refugees,” UNHCR said in a statement. “Since 2021, UNHCR has been in discussions with the government on measures and mechanisms to support vulnerable Afghans. Regrettably, no progress has been made.” 

The foreign ministry of Pakistan did not respond immediately to a request for comment. 

Pakistan is home to millions of refugees from Afghanistan who fled after the Soviet Union’s invasion in 1979 and during the subsequent civil war. Most of them are yet to return despite Pakistan’s push to repatriate them under different programs. 

The Taliban has said any Afghan who fled the country since it took power in 2021 can return safely through a repatriation council. 

“Afghanistan is the joint home of all Afghans,” said Bilal Karimi, deputy spokesperson for the Taliban administration. “They can live here without any threat.” 
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