Top UN woman urges Muslims: Move Taliban into 21st century

Top UN woman urges Muslims: Move Taliban into 21st century
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UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed says Muslim countries need to help Afhanistan's Taliban rulers to move from the “13th century to the 21st.” (AFP file)
Top UN woman urges Muslims: Move Taliban into 21st century
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In this photo taken on January 19, 2022, Taliban officials listening as Prime Minister Mohammad Hassan Akhund speaks at the former presidential place in Kabul. (Taliban handout via AFP)
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Updated 26 January 2023
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Top UN woman urges Muslims: Move Taliban into 21st century

Top UN woman urges Muslims: Move Taliban into 21st century
  • “Their definition of protection would be, I would say, ours of oppression,” says UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed
  • Mohammed, a former Nigerian Cabinet minister, her delegation met with Taliban officials last week to discuss how they treat Afghan women

UNITED NATIONS: The highest-ranking woman at the United Nations said Wednesday she used everything in her “toolbox” during meetings with Taliban ministers to try to reverse their crackdown on Afghan women and girls, and she urged Muslim countries to help the Taliban move from the “13th century to the 21st.”
Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, a former Nigerian Cabinet minister and a Muslim, said at a news conference that four Taliban ministers, including the foreign minister and a deputy prime minister, spoke “off one script” during meetings with her delegation last week.
She said the officials sought to stress things that they say they have done and not gotten recognition for — and what they called their effort to create an environment that protects women.
“Their definition of protection would be, I would say, ours of oppression,” Mohammed said.

 

Those meetings in the Afghan capital, Kabul, and the Islamic group’s birthplace in Kandahar were followed by a visit this week by UN humanitarian chief Martin Griffiths and heads of major aid groups. They are pressing the Taliban to reverse their edict last month banning Afghan women from working for national and international non-governmental groups.
Speaking from Kabul on Wednesday, Griffiths said the focus of the visit was to get the Taliban to understand that getting aid operations up and running and allowing women to work in them was critical. The delegation’s message was simple — that the ban makes the groups’ work more difficult, he said.
“What I heard from all those I met (was) that they understood the need as well as the right for Afghan women to work, and that they will be working on a set of guidelines which we will see issued in due course, which will respond to those requirements,” Griffiths said.
Mohammed said her delegation, including the head of UN Women, which promotes gender equality and women’s rights, pushed back against the Taliban, including when they started talking about humanitarian principles.
“We reminded them that in humanitarian principles, non-discrimination was a key part … and that they were wiping out women from the workplace,” she said.
As a Sunni Muslim, like the Taliban officials, Mohammed said she told the ministers that when it comes to preventing girls’ education beyond sixth grade and taking away women’s rights, they are not following Islam and are harming people.




In this photo released on January 19, 2022, Taliban officials listen as Afghan Prime Minister Mohammad Hassan Akhund speaks at the former presidential place in Kabul. (AFP) 

In one setting, Mohammed said, she was told by a Taliban official she didn’t name that “it was haram (forbidden by Islamic law) for me to be there talking to them.” These conservatives won’t look straight at a woman, she noted, so she said she played “that game” and didn’t look directly at them either.
“I gave as much as I think they gave, and we did push,” she said.
Mohammed said the Taliban have said that in due course the rights taken away from women and girls will come back so the UN delegation pressed for a timeline. “What they would say was ‘soon,’” she said.

The Taliban took power for a second time in August 2021, during the final weeks of the US and NATO forces’ pullout from Afghanistan after 20 years of war.
Mohammed said the Taliban, who have not been recognized by a single country, want international recognition and Afghanistan’s seat at the United Nations, which is currently held by the former government led by Ashraf Ghani.
“Recognition is one leverage that we have and we should hold onto,” Mohammed said.
Before arriving in Kabul, Mohammed’s delegation traveled to Muslim majority countries, including Indonesia, Turkiye, Gulf states and Saudi Arabia, where she said there was wide support against the Taliban bans.
She said there is a proposal for the UN and the 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation to host an international conference in mid-March on women in the Muslim world.
“It’s very important that the Muslim countries come together,” she said. “We have to take the fight to the region … and we need to be bold about it and courageous about it because women’s rights matter.”
Griffiths, the undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, and his delegation, including the heads of Care International and Save the Children US, did not travel to Kandahar, where the ban on Afghan women working for NGOs was issued on the orders of the reclusive Taliban supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzdaza.




Martin Griffiths, UN Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief. (AFP)

Griffiths acknowledged Akhundzada’s top status but said there are many important voices among Taliban officials across the country.
“I don’t think it’s a simple matter of simply asking one man to take responsibility and to change an edict,” he said. “There is a collective responsibility for this edict, and I hope we’re building up a collective will to compensate for its ban.”
Save the Children’s Janti Soeripto said that there were meetings with eight ministries in two days and that some among the Taliban seemed to understand the need to reverse the ban.
“There’s resistance, they don’t want to be seen doing a U-turn,” she said. “If people don’t see the consequences as viscerally as we see them, people will feel less inclined.”
Mohammed said it is important for the UN and its partners to work more in some 20 Afghan provinces that are more forward leaning.
“A lot of what we have to deal with is how we travel the Taliban from the 13th century to the 21st,” she said. “That’s a journey. So it’s not just overnight.”
She said the Taliban told her delegation that it is putting forward a law against gender-based violence, which she called “a big plus” because rape and other attacks are increasing in Afghanistan.
“I want to hold the Taliban to champion implementing that law,” she said.
Mohammed said it is important to maximize whatever leverage there is to bring the Taliban back to the principles underpinning participation in the “international family.”
“No one objects to a Muslim country or Sharia (law),” she said. “But all of this cannot be re-engineered to extremism and taking views that harm women and girls. This is absolutely unacceptable, and we should hold the line.”


One dead, one injured after assailant attacks passersby in Paris: French police

One dead, one injured after assailant attacks passersby in Paris: French police
Updated 10 min 43 sec ago
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One dead, one injured after assailant attacks passersby in Paris: French police

One dead, one injured after assailant attacks passersby in Paris: French police
  • A police source said the attacker was known for psychiatric disorders

PARIS: An attacker stabbed one person to death and wounded another in Paris on Saturday, reportedly shouting "Allahu Akbar" before being arrested, a French police source told AFP.
The attacker was born in France and is French, the source said. The wounded person was receiving treatment.
A police source said the attacker was known for psychiatric disorders and had said he could not stand Muslims being killed in the world.
Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin is expected at the scene in the French capital's 15th district.
"Police officers have just bravely arrested an attacker going after passers-by in Paris, around the Quai de Grenelle," he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
"One person dead and one wounded treated by the Paris firefighters. Please avoid the area."
An AFP journalist said a security cordon had been put in place near the Eiffel Tower.


Israeli strike destroys prestige Qatar-funded Gaza complex

Israeli strike destroys prestige Qatar-funded Gaza complex
Updated 8 min 58 sec ago
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Israeli strike destroys prestige Qatar-funded Gaza complex

Israeli strike destroys prestige Qatar-funded Gaza complex
  • The Gaza health ministry said at least 193 Palestinians had been killed since the truce ended on Friday, adding to the more than 15,000 Palestinian dead since the start of the war
  • Israel said it had recalled a team from Qatar, host of indirect negotiations with Hamas, accusing the Palestinian faction of reneging on a deal to free all the women and children it was holding

KHAN YUNIS, Palestinian Territories: At almost exactly the same time Israeli negotiators pulled out of deadlocked truce talks in Qatar on Saturday, Israeli jets sent a prestige Doha-funded housing development in the Gaza Strip up in smoke.
Hamad City is named for the former emir of the Gulf petro-state, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, who laid the foundation stone on a visit 11 years ago.
Inaugurated in 2016, it was still among the newest projects in the Gaza Strip, the housing complex in the city of Khan Yunis boasting an impressive mosque, shops and gardens.
The first flats — more than 1,000 of them — were provided to Palestinians whose homes were destroyed in the war between Israel and Hamas two years earlier.
On Saturday it happened again, a day after a Qatar-brokered pause in the current war between Israel and Hamas expired.
First their phones pinged around noon with an “immediate” evacuation order SMS sent by the Israeli army, which says the system is aimed at minimizing civilian casualties.
Around an hour later, five Israeli air strikes rained down on the neighborhood in the space of just two minutes.
Bombs slammed into the pale apartment blocks one by one, reducing them largely to rubble and sending a huge pall of black smoke into the sky, as people fled and cries of ‘help!’ and ‘ambulance!’ rang out.
“At least we got through it,” 26-year-old Nader Abu Warda told AFP, amazed he was still alive.

The Israeli military has divided the Gaza Strip into 2,300 “blocs” and is now sending SMS messages to residents telling them to leave before they launch the strikes which they say will “eliminate Hamas.”
Around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, died in the Islamist movement’s October 7 assault on southern Israel and some 240 were taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities.
The Hamas-led Gaza Strip government says Israel’s campaign has killed more than 15,000 people, also mostly civilians, since it was launched eight weeks ago.
The United Nations humanitarian agency, OCHA, has highlighted that the warning messages do not indicate where the recipients should go.
Ibrahim Al-Jamal, a civil servant in his 40s, said he does not have any “Internet, any electricity or even a radio to receive information” and that he has “never seen this map” setting out the different blocs.
“Many people in Gaza have never heard of it and it wouldn’t matter anyway as the bombings are taking place everywhere,” he said.
Humanitarian bodies say the most vulnerable in Gaza are the estimated 1.7 million displaced people.
Many of them do not have access to phones and have to rely on warning leaflets dropped by planes, not visible from inside an apartment.

According to the Gaza Strip’s Civil Defense emergency and rescue organization, in recent weeks “hundreds of displaced families” had been taking refuge in 3,000 apartments at Hamad City.
Mohammed Foura, 21, already displaced once from Gaza City, told AFP that half an hour before the strike he had been warned by other residents to flee.
They shouted “get out, get out,” he said, as families piled their belongings into cars or carried them away in enormous bundles.
Nader Abu Warda fled Jabalia, near Gaza City, at the start of the war and no longer knows which way to go or what to do.
He, his wife and three children had been staying in a friend’s apartment in the complex.
“They told us ‘Gaza City is a war zone’, now it’s Khan Yunis,” he said. “Yesterday, they were saying ‘evacuate the east of Khan Yunis’. Today, they say ‘evacuate the west’,” he added, visibly exasperated.
“Where are we going now, into the sea? Where are we going to put our children to bed?“

 


UAE leader meets US vice president, other leaders on sidelines of COP28 in Dubai

UAE leader meets US vice president, other leaders on sidelines of COP28 in Dubai
Updated 18 min 30 sec ago
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UAE leader meets US vice president, other leaders on sidelines of COP28 in Dubai

UAE leader meets US vice president, other leaders on sidelines of COP28 in Dubai
  • Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed, Kamala Harris discuss areas of cooperation
  • Sheikh also meets leaders of Italy, Poland, Albania

LONDON: UAE President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed held talks with US Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday on the sidelines of COP28 in Dubai, state news agency WAM reported.

During the meeting, the officials stressed the importance of the conference in fostering cooperation to combat climate change worldwide and highlighted their countries’ collaborations on renewable energy and sustainable development.

The meeting also looked at the wider US-UAE relationship and explored ways to advance ties in various fields. A number of regional and international issues of mutual interest were also discussed, including the latest developments in the Palestinian territories.

“The importance of working toward a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, protecting civilians, providing secure channels to deliver humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza without obstruction, preventing their displacement and identifying a clear political horizon based on the two-state solution to achieve regional stability and peace were also highlighted,” the WAM report said.

Sheikh Mohammed also held individual meetings with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, Polish President Andrzej Duda and Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama.

The leaders discussed ways to increase cooperation between their respective nations as well as regional and international issues of mutual interest.

Sheikh Mohammed also stressed the need for collective action to achieve practical results with regard to tackling climate change.

The heads of several foreign delegations commended the UAE president’s initiative, launched at COP28, to create a $30 billion fund to tackle the funding gap in global climate action.


GCC foreign ministers to hold preparatory meeting ahead of leaders’ summit in Doha

GCC foreign ministers to hold preparatory meeting ahead of leaders’ summit in Doha
Updated 28 min 50 sec ago
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GCC foreign ministers to hold preparatory meeting ahead of leaders’ summit in Doha

GCC foreign ministers to hold preparatory meeting ahead of leaders’ summit in Doha
  • 158th ministerial meeting will be chaired by Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman

RIYADH: Gulf ministers are set to gather on Sunday to hold a preparatory meeting in Qatar’s capital Doha ahead of the 44th Gulf Cooperation Council Summit, the bloc said in a statement on Saturday.
GCC Secretary-General Jasem Albudaiwi said the bloc’s 158th ministerial meeting will be chaired by Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman — whose country is also the current president of the ministerial council — and will be attended by member states’ foreign ministers.
Albudaiwi said the meeting is a continuation of the preparations underway for the launch of the 44th session of the GCC Supreme Council, scheduled to be held on Tuesday in Doha in the presence of Gulf leaders.
He added that during the ministerial meeting, several reports will be discussed regarding the implementation of decisions issued by the Supreme Council at the 43rd summit in the Saudi capital Riyadh last year, as well as memoranda and reports submitted by the ministerial and technical committees and the General Secretariat.
The meeting will also cover topics related to dialogues and strategic relations between GCC states and other countries and international blocs, in addition to the latest regional and international developments.


US VP Harris calls for restraint as Israel strikes southern Gaza

US VP Harris calls for restraint as Israel strikes southern Gaza
Updated 39 min 31 sec ago
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US VP Harris calls for restraint as Israel strikes southern Gaza

US VP Harris calls for restraint as Israel strikes southern Gaza
  • Jordan’s King Abdullah II and the US Vice President Kamala Harris meet in Dubai on the sidelines of COP28
  • King Abdullah stressed the need for the US to play a leading role in pushing for a political horizon for the Palestinian issue to reach peace on the basis of the two-state solution

GAZA/CAIRO: US Vice President Kamala Harris said too many innocent Palestinians had been killed in Gaza as Israeli war planes and artillery bombarded the enclave on Saturday following the collapse of a truce with Hamas militants.
Speaking in Dubai, Harris said Israel had a right to defend itself, but international and humanitarian law must be respected and “too many innocent Palestinians have been killed.”
“Frankly, the scale of civilian suffering, and the images and videos coming from Gaza, are devastating,” Harris told reporters.
On the sidelines of COP28, Jordan’s King Abdullah II and the US Vice President met in Dubai, reported the Jordan News Agency.
King Abdullah stressed the need for the US to play a leading role in pushing for a political horizon for the Palestinian issue to reach peace on the basis of the two-state solution, during his meeting with Harris.
The King called for an immediate cease-fire in Gaza and protecting civilians, warning of the repercussions of the continued war on international peace and security, including further violence and conflict that could plunge the entire region into a catastrophe.
The two sides reaffirmed their rejection of any attempts of forced displacement of the Palestinians internally or outside Gaza, or attempts to re-occupy any parts of the Strip, reported Petra.
King Abdullah also stressed the importance of maintaining the uninterrupted delivery of sufficient aid, including food, water, fuel, and electricity, without any impediments, warning against the targeting of hospitals and hindering the delivery of medical supplies.
Meanwhile, Harris thanked King Abdullah for his continued leadership in addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and for Jordan’s leadership in providing vital humanitarian assistance to Gaza, including its three airdrops of medical supplies to the field hospital that it has established in Gaza.
She discussed the importance of the recent pause in the fighting between Israel and Hamas, and the Biden-Harris administration’s commitment to supporting efforts to reach a new deal. She also discussed the US ideas for post-conflict planning in Gaza, including efforts on reconstruction, security, and governance.
The US vice president emphasized that these efforts can only succeed if they are pursued in the context of a clear political horizon for the Palestinian people, toward a state of their own led by a revitalized Palestinian Authority and backed by significant support from the international community and the countries of the region.
In a news conference in Tel Aviv, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said later on Saturday that Israel was continuing to work in coordination with the US and international organizations to define “safe areas” for Gaza civilians.
“This is important because we have no desire to harm the population,” Netanyahu said. “We have a very strong desire to hurt Hamas.”
Harris also sketched out a US vision for post-conflict Gaza, saying the international community must support recovery and Palestinian security forces must be strengthened.
“We want to see a unified Gaza and West Bank under the Palestinian Authority, and Palestinian voices and aspirations must be at the center of this work,” she said, adding that Hamas must no longer run Gaza.
The Western-backed Palestinian Authority governs parts of the occupied West Bank. Hamas seized control of Gaza in 2007 from Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ mainstream Fatah party and has ruled the enclave ever since.

* With Reuters