Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Posts tagged: Protest

Protest

Living with the Taleban (2): Local experiences in Nad Ali district, Helmand province

AAN Guests •

What is it like to live in an area controlled by the Taleban? How does their rule affect your life and can you influence what they do? To answer these questions, we embarked on a research project scrutinising three districts in depth, looking at the local dynamics of citizen/Taleban interactions, the structure of Taleban government and whether local […]

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10 June 2017, outside one of several protest tents -- this one on 40 Metre Road near the Taimani Project -- that were erected on main roads around Kabul in response to both a truck bombing near the German Embassy that killed 150 and wounded as many as 500 as well as the police response to demonstrations that followed in which several protestors were killed. The last tent was removed three weeks after it was erected. Credit: Andrew Quilty for AAN

AAN Q&A: Tents and Bullets – the crackdown on the Kabul protests

AAN Team •

The last of at least seven tents that protestors had set up in Kabul – after the horrific 31 May bomb attack and in protest against police brutality used during a march they organised on 2 June 2017 – has been removed. Afghan police forces dismantled it late in the evening of Monday, 19 June […]

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Power transmission line in Balkh province. Photo: Jelena Bjelica (2011).

Power to the People (2): The TUTAP protests

Thomas Ruttig •

When protesters interrupted President Ashraf Ghani’s speech in London three times on 13 May 2016, the heated controversy surrounding the route of TUTAP, a main electricity grid initiative, received even international attention. In Afghanistan, the tensions have been simmering since January 2016 when Hazara members of the government started trying to prevent a potential rerouting of […]

Economy, Development, Environment Read more

The Kandahar Killing: With friends like this… (amended)

Thomas Ruttig •

After the killing of 16 Afghan civilians by a US soldier in Kandahar province, Western military and political officials have – duly – apologised again but also called the incident ‘rogue’, a ‘first time’ or a ‘completely out-of-the-ordinary’ event. Thomas Ruttig, a Senior Analyst at AAN, wonders whether this is the case or whether it […]

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Afghanistan’s ‘Cumulative’ Protests and the West’s Dilemma (amended)

Thomas Ruttig •

Afghanistan has seen its largest protests since the fall of the Taleban. For six days in a row, demonstrations protested the burning of copies of the Qur’an at Bagram airbase in about half of the Afghanistan’s 34 provinces. Roads were blocked, ISAF bases stormed and an UN office targeted and there were calls for jihad […]

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The Quran burnings and the different faces of restraint

Martine van Bijlert •

The fourth day of protests has ended with a mixed picture: on one hand relief over what seemed to have been a sense of restraint in many areas, on the other hand sadness and resignation over the reports of violence and deaths coming from a handful of places. All in all, it was not as […]

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The Quran burnings and the different faces of anger

Martine van Bijlert •

Yesterday’s thoughtless and avoidable burning of several Qurans at Bagram air base has sparked a second day of protests across Afghanistan. The repercussions are expected to reverberate for several more days, at least. The demonstrations are a combination of religious outrage, pent-up frustration and groups wanting to stir trouble. It is difficult to predict how […]

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Quran Burning on Bagram Base

Thomas Ruttig •

This blog can be very short, thinks Thomas Ruttig, a Senior Analyst at AAN, and doesn’t require any Afghanistan expertise: Books and other reading material, Islamic or otherwise, do not belong in the garbage. If you stick to this basic rule, Quran burnings and retaliatory riots can be avoided. For an alternative to dispose of printed material, […]

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First Flickers of an Afghan Facebook Reform Movement

Gran Hewad •

After the revolution in Egypt and Tunisia in which Facebook played a key role, young Afghan Facebook users have started to establish their own pages to organise anti-government protest. They have chosen corruption and reform as their rallying issues. AAN’s Gran Hewad went to the first press conference of one of the reformist groupings but […]

Rights and Freedoms Read more

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