KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) – The United Nations on Friday warned Taliban militants to end their protests peacefully, many women seeking equal rights, and journalists reporting on such incidents.
On another occasion, two Afghan journalists were beaten with metal rods.
Tagi Daryabi says he and a colleague are writing protests earlier this week with women demanding their rights from the new Taliban rulers in Afghanistan. Taliban militants stopped the two journalists, handcuffed them and dragged them to the police station in Kabul District.
The 22-year-old artist told The Associated Press that the first thing he heard from the station was screaming in a nearby room. Several soldiers later began beating him and his friend, Neamatullah Naqdi, 28.
On another occasion, Daryabi said he was beaten without stopping for 10 minutes. I did not know if I would be killed or alive, ”he said, with his face and body still scarred.
“We call on the Taliban to stop the use of force, and to arrest those who are exercising their rights at the peace conference and the journalists who are protesting,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said in a statement. Friday.
The report states that the Taliban are using force “against those involved in the protests or demonstrations.”
Undeterred, Daryabi said he had returned to the streets for another protest.
“It is dangerous for me to deal with them. The Taliban will say journalists are free, but how can they say this when they beat me and my friends? ”He said. “We can’t just quit our job.”
Daryabi and Naqdi work for the small newspaper Etilaat Roz, which also publishes video content on YouTube.
In the quiet days following the Taliban’s capture of Kabul on August 15, thousands of people, including women and young journalists, rushed to Kabul’s airport seeking to escape the war.
In the weeks since the incident, women have staged a series of protests for their freedom, almost all of them abruptly ending with Taliban insurgents. Two men were killed last week when Taliban opened fire on a women’s rights protest in western Herat. Journalists have been harassed at the meetings, including some photographers who were beaten.
Despite being persecuted by the Taliban, Duryabi said he was not prepared to leave his homeland.
“I see the Taliban going on like this, but if they change and bring in a face that protects the media, I will stay here. My life is in Afghanistan. But I don’t know, because today I can’t confirm anything,” he said.
The Daryabi newspaper and other media outlets say it is not known if the high profile of other police officers is being accepted by the Taliban. The office has shown interest, welcomes foreign journalists, and allows some of the women who live to be on the country’s most popular television station, TOLO TV.
“I feel like there seems to be a difference between the leadership and … the management, who are doing this on the ground,” said Saad Mohsini, CEO of Moby Media Group, which owns TOLO TV. “Their behavior reflects, not the views of the Taliban government, but the views of this official.”
Etilaat Roz’s editor-in-chief, Khaadim Karimi, who went to the police to rescue his journalists, said a Taliban fighter had tried to stop the beatings of the two journalists and their allies.
“I saw his personality. He tried to help, ”said Karimi. Daryabi and Naaqdi were released after about four hours.
Mohsini said journalists needed reassurance and protection. He called on the committee to include all Taliban intelligence officials and media representatives to hear complaints from all quarters.
Mohsini, whose TV station TOLO uses hundreds, says he has continued to keep in touch with the Taliban leadership as it progresses.
Governments around the world are highly skeptical. In their eyes, the new Taliban’s Court of Human Rights has violated the agency’s promises to include. Instead, the rebels appear to have taken over the leadership of the 1990s, when their brutal interpretation of Islam denied women’s rights and severely restricted the press.
One difference now is that those leaders have a global outlook that they did not have in the past.
Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, for example, does not like to leave the old Kandahar faction in the south, when he is in power. In recent years, he has been a key figure in the Taliban, he has stood in line with world leaders, he has forged alliances with the heavily burdened Taliban and he is now the second Prime Minister.
It was Baradar who helped get out of Kabul on Thursday and Friday for American citizens and those with Afghanistan’s green cards on their first business trip.
However, hundreds of Afghans north of the city of Mazar-e-Sharif are expected to leave the country. But the Taliban have refused to allow the plane to take off, demanding their documents. The Taliban say only Afghans with travel documents are allowed to leave.
Affected Afghans in Mazar-e-Sharif, many of whom have served in the US-German war, are feared to be forgotten.