Month: July 2024

A Pay Cut for Afghan Women Working in the Public Sector: “What can you do with 5,000 afghanis?”

Jelena Bjelica • Roxanna Shapour •

The order by the Supreme Leader of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), Hibatullah Akhundzada, to cut the salaries of women on the public payroll to just 5,000 afghanis (70 US dollars) a month was a bombshell. The Amir’s order was short and ambiguously worded, driving anxiety and speculation: did it apply to all women working […]

29 Jul 2024

The Daily Hustle: Going on a picnic with your family, if you’re a girl 

Rama Mirzada • Roxanna Shapour •

Going on a picnic and spending time with your family, enjoying Afghanistan’s natural beauty, is a favourite pastime for Afghan families, especially in springtime. However, since the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) has imposed many restrictions on women and older girls, public parks in the country have largely become no-go areas for them. AAN has […]

23 Jul 2024

The Taliban’s Qosh Tepa Canal Disguises A New Potential Conflict

Atlas News, 18 July 2024 This report about one of the largest Taleban-driven development projects (behind a paywall) quotes from AAN research.

18 Jul 2024

Taliban tries reconciling science and religion in facing climate change

Washington Post, 12 July 2024 Brilliant reportage by Rick Noack from Afghanistan, describing – in a series of telling quotes – the Taleban’s position(s) on climate change (they are no climate change deniers) and cleaning up the misunderstanding that not-much-educated villagers would be unable to grasp the climate crisis: … during a recent workshop (…) […]

12 Jul 2024

How to engage with the Taliban, if you have to

The New Humanitarian, 11 July 2024 An opinion piece published by Patricia Gossman, Associate director for the Asia division of Human Rights Watch, and Fereshta Abbasi, Afghanistan Researcher at that organisation, at The New Humanitarian, following the third UN-sponsored Afghanistan special envoy meeting in Doha, with (not-so-high ranking) Taleban representatives participating, while, also for the first […]

11 Jul 2024

How The Emirate Wants to be Perceived: A closer look at the Accountability Programme

Martine van Bijlert •

As the third anniversary of its return to power approaches, the Islamic Emirate is presumably readying itself for another round of its Accountability Programme, as it has done in the past two summers. These televised sessions, held by ministers and other senior officials in front of journalists, provide a fairly detailed overview of the Emirate’s […]

9 Jul 2024

As Taliban limits options for Afghan women, many lead secret lives online

Washington Post, 5 July 2024 The Posts reports that, “banned from secondary and higher education,” many Afghan women “attend online classes, learn foreign languages with the help of AI chatbots and e-books, and trade cryptocurrencies in the hope of becoming financially independent.” They also run businesses online. But they also worry “that these havens might be short-lived”, […]

5 Jul 2024

‘Nothing compensates for the stolen years’: the Afghan women rebuilding shattered dreams in Iran

The Guardian, 4 July 2024 Stefanie Glinski’s reportage from Iran about Afghan women going to Iran to study, saying that more than 40,000 Afghan students – most of them women – were now studying at university in Iran, according to the country’s deputy science minister for international affairs. At the same time, more than 600,000 Afghan children are […]

4 Jul 2024