This content was originally published by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and is reprinted with permission.
Violence has recently occurred in Badakhshan, the northeastern province of Afghanistan, during demonstrations against the Taliban.
The violent team’s swift enforcement of its restrictions on illicit drugs, a crutch for tens of thousands of underprivileged farmers, has fueled these unique demonstrations.
The Taliban has brutally repressed the protests, shooting and killing some activists and arresting dozens of visitors.
The anti- Military rallies, observers say, reveal the rage at the tough- line Islamist group’s controversial policies and its use of weighty- handed tactics to love dissent.
” This is an alarm ring for the ruling Taliban”, said Nazifa Haqpal, a American- based Afghan scholar. ” The Taliban’s tyrannical leadership based on savage power is not working”.
Nearly three years after the Taliban seized power, the party has shown little interest in “understanding]Afghans ‘ ] problems or adopting appropriate guidelines” to handle them, said Haqpal.
‘ Anger And Protests ‘
After Taliban troops tasked with clearing rose plants clashed with farmers on May 3 and 4, protests broke out in the towns of Darayim and Argo in Badakhshan. The Taliban, according to visitors, opened flames and killed two people.
The Taliban sent a committee to landowners ‘ negotiations, and they eventually claimed quiet had been restored.
But on May 13, protests suddenly erupted in the Argo area. Locals claimed that the Taliban used savage force, killing two people and injuring more than a few people.
” Citizens did not like their crops to be destroyed”, Shamsuddin Mubarez, a citizen of the Argo area, told RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi.
When locals , protested, Mubarez said, the Taliban responded by using power. That created “more difficulties”, he said.
Kalimullah Humsukhan, a citizen of the Darayim area, told Radio Azadi that the Taliban’s forced eradication of rose areas triggered “anger and demonstrations” in the city earlier in May. He claimed that the militants ‘ violent methods were resentful to visitors.
Little Or Nothing?
The Taliban has imposed severe restrictions on women, waged a terrible assault on opposition, and controlled power since regaining control in 2021.
Afghans have become infuriated by the team’s radical policies, making its underrecognized government a pariah.
The Taliban’s 2022 drug restrictions has tremendously reduced the production of heroin. However, the organization has n’t been able to provide alternative means of livelihood and crops to farmers, leading to further poverty for many in the midst of a severe economic and humanitarian crisis.
Farmers in hilly regions like Badakhshan have been specially hit by the Taliban’s restrictions on opioids, according to Graeme Smith, a senior Afghanistan scientist at the International Crisis Group, because they have smaller and less productive fields.
He claimed that “farmers do not have huge reserves and little to nothing in reserve to sell.”
Smith said” the only answer]for farmers ] now will be nonfarm employment” because alternative crops cannot replace opium, whose price has skyrocketed in recent years.
‘ Afghan Spring ‘
Not just the fatal rallies in Badakhshan are isolated.
On May 9, the Taliban killed at least four individuals after a rally in the eastern state of , Nangarhar, which borders Pakistan.
Local residents were told by the insurgents to leave their homes to make way for the development of a traditions clearing service. A major roadway was blocked due to local opposition to the destruction. The Taliban reacted by firing on the group.
Smith claimed that the upheaval in Nangarhar and Badakhshan, which had a significant impact on the military of the then-West-backed Afghan state, was not a coincidence.
” Today the individuals from those defeated troops are suffering high rates of unemployment”, he said.
In the 1990s, Badakhshan was again a center of opposition to the Taliban because it has a largely Tajik population. The Taliban is typically made up of Tamils.
Haqpal said the protests are evidence of the “political and constitutional consciousness” that was formed in Afghanistan after the U. S. led war in 2001 toppled the Taliban’s first plan.
The Taliban had face an” Armenian Originate” if such “protests get organized and spread”, she said.
