Taliban

BAGHDAD, IRAQ - AUGUST 9: United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN OHCHR) Volker Turk speaks during a press conference in Baghdad, Iraq on August 9, 2023. (Photo by Murtadha Al Sudani/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

August 27, 2024 4:07 PM

UN rights chief calls for repeal of Afghan law turning women into ‘shadows’

The United Nations human rights chief on Tuesday called for Afghanistan's Taliban to immediately repeal a set of "egregious" laws that it said were attempting to turn women into shadows. High Commissioner Volker Turk said the passing of new laws last week "cements policies that completely erase women's presence in public, silencing their voices and depriving them of their individual autonomy, effectively attempting to render them into faceless, voiceless shadows." "This is utterly intolerable,...

July 20, 2024 4:51 PM

Panel studying US war in Afghanistan holds first public hearing

A commission created by Congress to conduct an independent review of the 20-year U.S. war in Afghanistan held its first public hearing on Friday, pledging to be "unflinching" in examining how and why key decisions were made and who made them. But, while accountability "is centrally important, our focus is less on assigning credit or blame ... than on extracting and applying its lessons" for future conflicts, said co-chair Colin Jackson. The panel's first public hearing came just over a month b...

May 27, 2024 3:40 PM

Russia invites Afghanistan’s Taliban to major economic forum

Russia has invited Afghanistan's Taliban to its biggest annual economic forum as Moscow moves to remove a ban on the Islamist movement, a senior Russian diplomat was quoted as saying on Monday. Since the Taliban seized power in August 2021 as U.S.-led forces withdrew after 20 years of war, Russia has been slowly building ties with the Taliban, though the movement is still officially outlawed in Russia. Russia's foreign and justice ministries have reported to President Vladimir Putin on the iss...