Monthly Archives: August 2021

About 50 people gatheredaround the Market House in downtown Fayetteville on Saturday afternoon to rallyfor fair voting laws both locally and across the country.

The demonstration took place on the 58th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.'smarch on Washington where he delivered his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.

According toKimberly Hardy, rally organizer and president of the Democratic Women of Cumberland County, the demonstration was intended to bring together people from all political backgrounds to demand an end to restrictive voter laws in the United States such as gerrymandering the act of manipulating voting districts unfairly to gain an advantage, or to disadvantage opponents.

More: What do the Fayetteville and Cumberland County mask mandates mean for you?

"The issue of disenfranchisement, oppression and gerrymandering, these things are huge for us," Hardy said. "And just as a black woman, my community is always hampered by these kinds of things."

The demonstration also aimed to push for congressionalapproval of the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, both of which are intended to expand fair access to voting and end restrictive voter laws, Hardy said.

According to theFor the People Act, if passed it would assist in making voting more accessible and equitableto the public by instituting policies that end partisan gerrymandering, expand access to voting by streamlining voter registration and mail-in voting, restore voting rights for people who have been in prison, strengthen ethical voting procedures, and update outdated voter infrastructure like old voting machines.

Similarly, the John Lewis Voting Rights Act seeks to embolden the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by restoring parts of the act like requiring state voting laws be authorized by the federal government.

Hardy, along with several other groups and activists, organized Saturday's event to highlight the importance of comprehensive voter legislation and advocate for the end of voter suppression, she said.

"You control what happens in this country," Hardy said. "We can hire and fire so many people with one piece of paper every two to four years, and so let's hire the people that believe in the values that are important to us."

She said the issue of voter suppression is not a partisan problem, and it affects people at all points inthe political spectrum.

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Also in attendance at the event was Democratic N.C. State Sen. Kirk deViere, who represents Cumberland County. He said he was glad to see so many people out fighting against voter suppression.

"We need to make sure that we expand the access to the ballot and not decrease it," he said.

He referenced a recent order from several state trial judges that restores the right to vote to around 56,000 felons in N.C. whose sentences do not include prison time.

"Look at the recent ruling we saw across the state where over 50,000 felons are now able to vote," deViere said. "That's huge. That's how it's supposed to be.

Several people at the event helped people register to vote, emphasizing the need to bring in new voters rather than rely on those who would vote no matter what.

Gerard Falls, a Fayetteville educator and member of activism organization Cape Fear Indivisible in Fayetteville, spoke to the crowd about the need for more people to get involved in voting rights discussions.

He said that despite anyone's political affiliations, key issues unite us all.

"Access to affordable healthcare is a struggle for the vast majority of people in this community, access to affordable housing is a struggle for the vast majority of people in this community, and living wages that people can support their families on is a challenge for most of the people in this community," Falls said. "It doesn't matter whose door you're knocking on, whether they're Republican or Democrat, these are experiences that people share."

According to Falls, fair access to voting and voter registration turnout is a key factor in remedying the issues of affordable healthcare, housing and fair wages.

As demonstrators chanted mantras illustrating their goal to give people access to the right to vote, passing motorists honked their horns in solidarity.

"All of us," one activist called out.

"Or none of us," the crowd answered.

Reporter Jack Boden can be reached at jboden@gannett.com.

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Activists gather in downtown Fayetteville to rally for voting rights - The Fayetteville Observer

Ali A. Olomi| Guest column

The rapid takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban left many surprised. To Ali Olomi, ahistorian of the Middle East and Islamat Penn State University, a key to understanding what is happening now and what might take place next is looking at the past and how the Taliban came to prominence. Below is an edited version of a conversation he had with editor Gemma Warefor the podcast, The Conversation Weekly. To find a link to the podcast, click here.

How far back do you trace the Talibans origins?

While the Talibanemerged as a force in the 1990sAfghan civil war, you have to go back to theSaur Revolution of 1978to truly understand the group, and what theyre trying to achieve.

The Saur Revolution was a turning point in the history of Afghanistan. By the mid-1970s, Afghanistan had beenmodernizing for decades. The two countries that were most eager to get involved in building up Afghan infrastructure were the United States and the Soviet Union both of which hoped to have a foothold in Afghanistan to exert power over central and south Asia. As a result of theinflux of foreign aid, the Afghan government became the primary employer of the country and that led to endemic corruption, setting the stage for the revolution.

By that time, differing ideologies were fighting for ascendancy in the nation. On one end you had a group of mainly young activists, journalists, professors and military commanders influenced by Marxism. On the other end, you had Islamists beginning to emerge, who wanted to put in place a type of a Muslim Brotherhood-style Islamic state.

Daud Khan, the then-president of Afghanistan, originally allied himself with the young military commanders. But concerned over the threat of a revolutionary coup, he started to suppress certain groups. In April 1978,a coup deposed Khan. This led to the establishment of the Peoples Republic of Afghanistan, headed by a Marxist-Leninist government.

How did a leftist government help ferment the Taliban?

After an initial purge of the ruling Communist Party members, the new government turned toward suppressing Islamist and other opposition groups, which led to a nascent resistance movement.

The United States saw this as an opportunity andstarted to funnel money to Pakistans intelligence services, which were allied with Islamists in Afghanistan.

At first, the United States funneled only limited funds and just gave symbolic gestures of support. But it ended up allying with an Islamist group that formed part of the growing resistance movement known as the mujahedeen, which was a loose coalition more than a unified group. Alongside the Islamist factions, there were groups led by leftists purged by the ruling government. The only thing they all had in common was opposition to the increasingly oppressive government.

This opposition intensified in 1979, when then-Afghan leaderNur Mohammad Taraki was assassinatedby his second-in-command Hafizullah Amin, who took over and turned out to be a wildly repressive leader. Sovietfears of the U.S. capitalizing on the growing instabilitycontributed to the Soviet Union invasion in 1979. This resulted in theU.S. funneling further money to the mujahedeen, who were now fighting a foreign enemy on their land.

And the Taliban emerged from this resistance movement?

The mujahedeen waged a guerrilla-style war against Soviet forces for several years, until exhausting the invaders militarily and politically. That and international pressure brought the Soviet Union to the negotiating table.

After theSoviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989, chaos reigned. Within three years, the new government collapsed and the old mujahedeen commanders turned into warlords with different factions in different regions, increasingly turning on one another.

Amid this chaos, one former Islamist mujahedeen commander,Mullah Mohammad Omar, looked to Pakistan where a generation of young Afghans had grown up in refugee camps, going to various madrassas where they were trained in a brand of strict Islamic ideology, known asDeobandi.

From these camps he drew support for what became the Taliban taliban means students. The bulk of Taliban members are not from the mujahedeen; they are the next generation and they actually ended up fighting the mujahedeen.

The Taliban continued to draw members from the refugee camps into the 1990s. Mullah Omar, from a stronghold in Kandahar, slowly took over more land in Afghanistan until theTaliban conquered Kabul in 1996and established the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. But they never took full control of all of Afghanistan the north remained in the hands of other groups.

What was behind the Talibans success in the 1990s?

One of the keys to the Taliban success was they offered an alternative. They said, Look, the mujahedeen fought heroically to liberate your country but have now turned it into a war zone. We offer security, we will end the drug trade, we will end the human trafficking trade. We will end the corruption.

What people forget is that the Taliban were seen as welcome relief for some Afghan villagers. The Talibans initial message of security and stability was an alternative to the chaos. And it took a year before theystarted to institute repressive measuressuch as restrictions on women and the banning of music.

The other thing that cemented their position in the 1990s was theyrecruited local people through force sometimes, or bribery. In every village they entered, the Taliban added to their ranks with local people. It was really a decentralized network. Mullah Omar was ostensibly their leader, but herelied on local commanderswho tapped into other factions aligned with their ideology such as theHaqqani network, a family-based Islamist group that became crucial to the Taliban in the 2000s, when it become the de facto diplomatic arm of the Taliban by leveraging old tribal alliances in order to convince more people to join the cause.

How crucial is this history to understand what is happening now?

An understanding of what was going in the Saur Revolution, or how it led to the chaos of the 1990s and the emergence of the Taliban, is crucial to today.

Many were surprised by thequick takeover of Afghanistanby the Taliban after President Biden announced a withdrawal of U.S. troops. But if you look at how the Taliban came to be a force in the 1990s, you realize they are doing the same thing now. They are saying to Afghans, Look at the corruption, look at the violence, look at the drones that are falling from U.S. planes. And again the Taliban are offering what they say is an alternative based on stability and security just as they did in the 1990s. And again they are leveraging localism as a strategy.

When you understand the history of the Taliban, you can recognize these patterns and what might happen next. At the moment, the Taliban are telling the world they will allow women to have an education and rights. They said the exact same thing in the 1990s. But like in the 1990s, their promises always have qualifiers. The last time they were in power, those promises were replaced by brutal oppression.

History isnt just a set of dates or facts. Its a lens of analysis that can help us understand the present and what will happen next.

Ali A. Olomi is anassistant professor of history atPenn State. This column was originally published by The Conversation.

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Understanding Taliban's start, and what could come next - Kitsap Sun

Afghanistan, after the Taliban takeover, is a waiting game. And for Afghan women, the waiting game is agonizing.

The last time the Taliban held power, in the late 90s and early 2000s, repression was a feature of their rule. This was especially true for women. Girls could not attend school; women could not hold jobs or leave their homes without a male relative accompanying them. Those who defied the Talibans directives and their fundamentalist interpretation of Islam were punished, often brutally, with floggings or beatings.

The US invasion of Afghanistan after the 9/11 attacks put the Talibans worldview under scrutiny. The war became about more than terrorism; things like the expansion of womens rights became embedded within the US mission there. In November 2001, first lady Laura Bush said the Talibans retreat meant the people of Afghanistan, especially women, are rejoicing. In 2010, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told a group of female Afghan ministers: We will not abandon you, we will stand with you always.

Twenty years later, the United States is departing, and as it executed those plans, those earlier justifications fell away. President Joe Biden has said, in the military drawdown, that the US objective in Afghanistan was to defeat terrorism there. He said last week, the idea that were able to deal with the rights of women around the world by military force is not rational.

That sentiment comes 20 years late, after the mess of two decades of conflict and the still-unfolding fallout of the USs military intervention. All of it leaves Afghan women facing a precarious future, once again, under Taliban rule and a question of what role, if any, the US has in that future.

The uncertainty facing Afghan women comes after 20 years of US intervention which itself followed decades of foreign intervention by the Soviet Union and others where womens rights were packaged as another justification for the war in Afghanistan. The gains were real, if uneven and often tenuous, undermined by the insecurity that the decades-long conflict brought.

The struggle for gender equality didnt start with the US arrival in 2001: Women in Afghanistan fought for their rights long before the Taliban arrived in the 1990s, and some Afghan womens activists opposed the US intervention.

But womens rights got inserted into the rallying cry for war regardless of whether Afghan women wanted them, and at times, they became a cause clbre. The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women, Laura Bush said in November 2001, a few weeks after the US invaded Afghanistan following the 9/11 attacks.

The central goal of the terrorists is the brutal oppression of women and not only the women of Afghanistan, President George W. Bush said in December 2001, around the signing of legislation for Afghan women and children. The terrorists who help rule Afghanistan are found in dozens and dozens of countries around the world. And that is the reason this great nation, with our friends and allies, will not rest until we bring them all to justice.

Saving Afghan women from the Taliban also helped make the case for continued US war, said Saadia Toor, a sociology professor at the CUNY College of Staten Island. Even among lawmakers who generally support the withdrawal, hints of that rhetoric continue today.

The US intervention brought attention and it brought development money, much of it well-meaning but not always suited to success. Afghan women did enter public life in a way that was impossible during the Talibans rule. The most drastic shift with respect to womens rights came formally, legally, constitutionally, and how they manifest within the formal sectors, said Maliha Chishti, former director of the United Nations Hague Appeal for Peace and professor at the University of Chicago. Womens rights were enshrined in Afghanistans 2004 constitution; women held a certain percentage of seats in Parliament and entered sectors like law, government, and media.

International aid severely limited during the Talibans rule improved some social, economic, and health outcomes for women. Girls and women had access to education, though the instability and Taliban resurgence in recent years has threatened that. In 2020, of 9.5 million students, just shy of 40 percent were girls, according to USAID.

Still, when it came to womens rights, they were most tangible in cities like Kabul, which, Chishti pointed out, were also the centers of international funding and foreign militaries that could protect those efforts. Meanwhile, grassroots efforts led by Afghan women sometimes conflicted with what Toor called NGO-ized feminism think conferences on womens empowerment and other kinds of Western-values activism that wasnt sustainable and didnt necessarily fit with Afghanistan.

Mariam Wardak, an advocate and former senior Afghan government official, pointed out that for traditional, religious, and cultural reasons, in many parts of Afghanistan there is a resistance for women to speak out, for women to hold a certain structure in our society.

And as the war ground on, the US commitment to womens rights sometimes visibly waned. Amie Ferris-Rotman, who reported for Reuters from Afghanistan for two years and founded an organization to mentor and train Afghan women journalists, noted for Vanity Fair that there have long been signs of betrayal of Americas stated commitment to womens rights:

There was the time a senior American official described issues of gender as pet rocks in our rucksack taking us down. Then there was the method deployed by the CIA of exchanging Viagra pills for intel on Taliban whereabouts, so that, in the words of an Afghan journalist friend, old men can rape their wives with Americas blessing. Lets not forget the polemic two years ago by academic Cheryl Benard, wife of the Afghan-born American Taliban negotiator, Zalmay Khalilzad, chastising Afghan women for not fighting for their rights, which they are not owed by someone elses army or taxpayer dollars. And when Joe Biden was asked last year by CBS if he bears some responsibility should Afghan women lose their rights under a Taliban takeover, the U.S. president responded to the reporter, Margaret Brennan, with No, I dont!

Ultimately, one of the biggest challenges to womens rights in Afghanistan was years of war. Its hard to get girls to go to school when theyre displaced by airstrikes or their schools are getting blown up. The Talibans advance across the country in the past years meant women in positions of authority were often under threat of kidnapping and violence.

Yet the full return of the Taliban deepens that threat, and threatens to stall or unravel the progress Afghan women have made. Zubaida Akbar, a 31-year-old Afghan activist whos been in the United States for three years, said the lives of Afghan women have improved, even if that improvement has been slow.

Zahra Nader, a journalist and PhD student from Afghanistan whos based in Canada, said the US talked about saving Afghan women from misogynist forces, this gender apartheid.

That did not happen, she said. That did not happen at all.

Yes, she said, she went to school, she went to university in Kabul an opportunity she recognizes that many other Afghan women did not have. But she and other Afghans were working to determine what came next for their country.

We were hoping that were going to build a society, were going to build a better future for Afghanistan, and we will be the ones that decide the future of the country, she said. But she argued that US intervention, whatever the justifications, was always about US interests, and those are what prevailed: What was going on in Afghanistan wasnt really our choice.

And now the women in Afghanistan are left to deal with the consequences of that, collateral in a war outside their control. The international community has failed us, Akbar said, and they have made it clear that our lives dont matter.

The Taliban have sought to rebrand themselves as a bit more moderate, especially with the world watching. The Taliban spokesperson has assured the public that women would be allowed to go to work and school, according to Islamic law. Part of the waiting game is seeing in practice what according to Islamic law really means.

This week, the Taliban spokesperson has made assurances that there will be no violence against women. Few believe him.

We see them as how we know them, Akbar said. The Taliban are who they are.

There are already signs the Taliban are who they always were. One TV news anchor in Afghanistan said she was turned away from work. You are not allowed, go home, she said she was told.

As they began retaking territory, the Taliban reportedly sent home female students and professors in Herat. A female university student in Kabul told the Guardian that she would have to burn everything I achieved in 24 years of my life. Having any ID card or awards from the American University is risky now. There are reports of the Taliban going door to door looking for any unmarried woman between the ages of 14 and 45 to marry off to Taliban soldiers. A few women I reached out to in Afghanistan declined to speak because they said, almost uniformly, that they are afraid.

Women are not even leaving their homes because they dont feel safe, Lida Azim, an organizer with Afghans for a Better Tomorrow, said. They might be allowed to go to work or school, but its a huge intimidation tactic.

Akbars volunteer organization works with children who have lost their parents, often from conflict, and with mothers, including some whove escaped domestic violence. Her group connects people with support services like counseling, medical checkups, and food. The goal, Akbar said, was to create social reform through volunteerism. As the Taliban rushed through Afghanistan, the work stopped. Because of the type of work that we were doing, our volunteers do not feel safe continuing to work in Afghanistan, unfortunately, and their lives are at risk, she said.

Others who work with nonprofit organizations or networks in Afghanistan also do not know what will happen to their female staff and volunteers. They fear that if the humanitarian situation worsens in Afghanistan banks are closed, services are scarce, thousands of people were displaced by the Taliban offensive, the threat of hunger looms those services will be desperately needed. Some said they are still unsure whether or how their ability to deliver aid might be affected and what that means for the families who rely on it.

But defiance accompanies this fear and uncertainty. Afghans, despite the threat of violence, have protested the Taliban takeover. Women are among them, leading them.

Even women who are intimidated are trying to go to work. Wardak, who also founded HerAfghanistan, a network of women in Afghanistan, mentioned one girl in her network who went to her job last week in Kabul. She went terrified. But she went, Wardak said.

Nader said that even if women couldnt go to their jobs, they are leaving their homes, just to go outside. They go with a sense of fear, not knowing what is going to happen or what the reaction of one particular Taliban soldier might be, she said. But they do go out.

Just to tell [them] that we are here, we are not gone, Nader said.

Some Afghan activists told me they see this as an opportunity for women to push back, especially as the world is watching. Right now, because Taliban wants international recognition, we have to push boundaries to see how far we can go, Wardak said.

The Taliban will need foreign money if they want to stay afloat. This could be a place of leverage, as international legitimacy will depend on whether the Taliban meets its commitments on human and womens rights. At the same time, activists worry that sanctions or other policies to put pressure on the government will trickle down and increase the suffering of the Afghan people.

Activists said they still want the Taliban held accountable, but the US and coalition allies have ceded some of their leverage as they depart. Military intervention did not bring lasting peace or democracy or rights. But that does not mean the United States or the rest of the world can wash its hands of it all.

Akbar spent last week fielding calls, filling out visa forms, writing letters. After one day of this, when she looked at the spreadsheet she uses to record her efforts, she counted more than 100 people, all desperate to leave Afghanistan.

Many of the people she is trying to help are women, though not all. The return of the Taliban has put many lives at risk, including those who worked with the US military or coalition forces or international organizations or the Afghan government. Ethnic and religious minorities also face real threats. Women, of course, cut across all those categories or are associated with those who do. There are also the women who became leaders in the past two decades activists, advocates, and political leaders, who fear they may become direct Taliban targets. They cant, activists say, stay in Afghanistan and be safe.

Which is why many activists say that what many women need most in Afghanistan is a way to exit, as soon as possible. The lives of these women are at risk, Akbar said. They will get killed if they stay in Afghanistan.

Since August 14, the US says it has evacuated more than 37,000 people; the pace has increased in recent days, with about 11,000 or so leaving each day, reports the New York Times. Still, in the past week, the chaotic scenes outside the Kabul airport, and report after report of the difficulty of getting through, have revealed how desperate people are. The United States is now deploying troops to get Americans and their allies who are unable to make it to the airport.

Many Afghans who helped the US military or government may be eligible for Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs), but as the New York Times reports, many of those jobs, like interpreters, were filled by men.

Which is why many activists fear that women may be left out of some of these programs, especially the activists, journalists, and political leaders who are directly at risk now that the US is leaving. Advocacy groups are calling on the Biden administration to prioritize and expedite the evacuation of womens rights activists, journalists, lawmakers, and other public figures, as have some members of Congress.

As a global community, not just United States, we need to talk about how do we let them in, how do we open our doors? Homayra Yusufi, with the Afghan-American Council and the Partnership for the Advancement of New Americans, said.

As many pointed out, the US and its coalition allies have a moral obligation. There is an emergency right now, and whatever happens in the future cant be completely separated from the decades of conflict and intervention. As Azim, of Afghans for a Better Tomorrow, said, for the US and Western allies, the responsibility is on their hands.

Of course, not everyone can or wants to flee Afghanistan. Activists say theres still a role for the international community in helping people who remain in the country: international aid, specifically, to help the coming humanitarian crisis and try to shore up grassroots groups that do provide health and other support services.

International support may depend on what the Taliban might do around womens rights in Afghanistan. But right now, there is an immediate emergency to evacuate women who are being targeted by the Taliban or fear they might be very soon. Those in Afghanistan, desperate to leave, likely believe they have no other choice.

I am getting calls back to back, Yusufi said, as are all of the organizations that work on refugee issues or just getting bombarded from calls from family members, calls coming in from Afghanistan, being like, I need help, I need to get out right now.

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The uncertain future of womens rights in Afghanistan under the Taliban - Vox.com

More than 80 percent of the population in Afghanistan belongs to rural areas, living under the clutches of regional warlords, lacking basic education for everyone, not to talk of girls. They are accustomed to a meagre and simple life, with a strong belief system.

Rural Afghanistan has no comparison to Kabul, a city of five million people, where the majority of the population has long been introduced to technology, Western politics, media and education. The credit for this does not go to any invading foreign power. The city has preserved the remnants of the golden days of the pre-Russian invasion era.

In the early 1970s, I remember many Afghan students coming to Kashmir to pursue higher degrees in our educational institutions and Kashmiris pursuing degrees in Kabul University.

The political, cultural, and linguistic connections between Afghanistan and Kashmir are centuries old. Abdullah Khan Ishaq was the first Afghan ruler in Kashmir who established his dynasty in the mid-18th century that lasted for almost 66 years. Memories of that period are still fresh in the Pashto-speaking area of Gotli Bagh, which resembles Kandahar, where some people have had to endure the persecution in the late 1990s on suspicion of their resemblance to the Afghan Taliban.

While the international community has expressed concern over the Taliban's second term in power in Afghanistan, India's concern over its impact on [Occupied] Kashmir has taken over prime time debates on media channels. However, India's domestic policies have been called into question in the global media by many political analysts.

According to a senior Indian journalist (name withheld due to security), "The Hindutva policy of the current regime has tarnished India's image across the globe. India seems isolated and alone. Who would dare tell Hindutva how they [can] call [the] Taliban extremists when they are playing fanatic politics to win elections? They have damaged the secular credentials of India".

Indias opposition politicians have expressed the same concerns as expressed in 1996 when the armed movement in Kashmir had reached its peak. The then Congress government was forced to outreach to Kashmir so as to suppress the movement and prevent any possible support for the Taliban. At that time, the government promised former chief minister of Occupied Jammu and Kashmir Farooq Abdullah, who had fled Kashmir and was living in the UK, the restoration of all political rights after state elections. Sky is the limit was the mantra of the government which was never fulfilled.

India now claims the Taliban may rejoin Kashmir's armed movement, although there has been no evidence in the past that any Afghan fighters were captured or killed in the 1990s, nor has any proof been found that Kashmiris have ever sought any help from the Taliban.

George Graham, a professor of South Asian politics and governments, says that "if [a] superpower like the United States signed the Doha agreement with the Taliban, who were branded terrorists, and justify [the] Taliban taking control of Kabul, who can stop Kashmiris from continuing their struggle and achieving their goal of freedom? It could have been stopped by the Indian government like in the early '90s, but Modi at the behest of the RSS has left no option for reconciliation.

There is a perception in India that Kashmiris are happy with the Taliban government in the neighbourhood. It must be borne in mind that most of the Kashmiris did not like the rule of the Taliban in the early 1990s but since Kashmiris have suffered under Hindutva politics and are struggling with the loss of their identity, dignity, and political rights, they certainly derive pleasure at every defeat of Indias Hindutva government.

Raja Aleem of Kashmir (who was jailed many times) says that "Hindutva followers are Hindu terrorists; their crimes against humanity are a hundred times more than the ISIS terrorists".

The political turmoil in the neighbourhood will not leave Jammu and Kashmir unaffected. However, it is not correct to say that Kashmiris are in favour of continuing their struggle at gunpoint or that they seek the favour of any other country. The majority support a peaceful struggle for their political and economic rights.

A few days ago, you may have heard the statement of Mehbooba Mufti in which she urged India in the context of the changing political situation in Afghanistan to find a peaceful solution to Kashmir or it can result in a heavy burden for the country. At the same time, the Gupkar Alliance of Mainstream Parties issued a strong statement warning the Indian government to take immediate steps for the restoration of Articles 370 and 35A of the Indian constitution so that the situation does not get out of hand again. In reaction, the ruling BJP demanded strict action against Mehbooba Mufti.

BJP local chief Ravinder Raina accused Mehbooba Mufti of spreading hatred in the country, saying "Narendra Modi is not Joe Biden of the United States who is withdrawing troops from Afghanistan out of fear of the Taliban although India had already announced the evacuation of thousands of people, including its diplomatic staff, from Kabul and other consulates.

Indian media has claimed that the mainstream and pro-freedom camp in Occupied Kashmir was not only in jubilation over the recent success of the Afghan Taliban, but that the youth were looking for ways to breathe a new life into the independence movement despite the government's tough policies against the population. The irony in this is that Kashmiri leaders did not say anything that most Indian analysts and opposition leaders did not say. Many politicians and political experts have warned the Indian government to refrain from its iron-fist policies and start the process of winning back the Kashmiri people.

Yashwant Sinha, the former finance minister in the BJP government after visiting Kashmir a few weeks ago said that the situation had worsened and the chasm between the Valley and Delhi had widened. Referring to the success of the Taliban, he slammed the Modi government's foreign policy, saying "it is a deviation from reality to call Kashmir normal. People did not take to the streets to protest, but that does not mean that the situation in Kashmir has improved, and the basic issue has been resolved; the distance between Kashmir and Delhi has become too wide to fill".

Commenting on the Taliban's success, former Indian army chief General Shankar Roy Chaudhry said that: "This will have a profound effect on Kashmir and there are fears of a recurrence of the 1990s situation. The government should immediately start the process of reconciliation with Kashmiris and reassure them that India is a secular country. It's the right place for all faiths".

When I mentioned this statement of the former army chief to Raja Hanif, a human rights activist in Kashmir, he laughed for a long time and then said, "General Sahib is advising his government that has taken away everything from Kashmiris based on religion, labelling them as 'terrorists' and has spread venom against them across the country. He is telling Modi to give a lollipop to Kashmiris. My advice would be to reassure the thirty percent minorities of India who are getting lynched every day in the name of religion". He further said, "Whether the Taliban come or not, we have no interest in [that]. Our struggle has started even before the birth of [the] Taliban, which will come to an end only after reaching our destination."

The situation in Jammu and Kashmir has worsened. Indian security forces go to peoples homes and check their phones to see if anyone has written a post or message about the Taliban.

A local editor of a newspaper says the success of the Taliban has certainly boosted public morale, but the real reason for this is the constant oppression inflicted by the Hindutva government. Political observers, including Mehbooba Mufti, have warned about the consequences, but since Mehbooba is a Kashmiri Muslim, she gets branded as being among traitors.

The writer is a Kashmiri activist and former journalist.

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Taliban and the Kashmiris - The News International

When Ali, who hasnt shaved in a month and has let his beard grow long and rugged, is out in public, he covers his face with a shawl.

"I try to live in the shadows," the Afghan photographer said via WhatsApp from Kabul. "Sooner or later, they will come for me."

Ali, 28, is Hazara, a mostly Shiite Muslim minority that was brutally oppressed by the Taliban before the hard-line Islamic regime was toppled in 2001.

Speaking on condition that he be identified by only one name, for fear of being sought out by the militant group, he said he now feared that the Taliban would "go after the people they dont like," and "the first target will be my people."

He is among millions of Afghans who are members of religious minorities and fear that the militants' return to power will spell oppression or death.

On Tuesday, the United Nations human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, warned that "Afghanistan's diverse ethnic and religious minorities are at risk of violence and repression" given the Taliban's history and reports of killings and targeted attacks in the past few months.

The Taliban have in the past targeted and killed individuals because of their beliefs or their links to the Afghan government, and religious leaders have been threatened with death for preaching messages contrary to the movement's strict and austere interpretation of Islam, according to a 2019 State Department report on religious freedom.

Image: A Hazara woman holds her child inside a cave where they live in the Tak Darakht village on the outskirts of Bamiyan province on March 6. (Wakil Kohsar / AFP via Getty Images file)

The majority of Afghanistan's nearly 40 million people are Sunnis, and Hazaras make up about 9 percent of the country's total population, according to the nongovernmental organization Minority Rights Group International. Other religious groups, such as Hindus, Sikhs and Christians, constitute less than 0.3 percent of the population, according to the State Department report.

Khalsa, who is Sikh and lives in Kabul, said the Taliban takeover has left her and her family worried about their future and safety. NBC News is using only her last name to protect her identity.

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"We are scared that any moment, (the Taliban) may attack our house," the 26-year-old said via WhatsApp. "And we are scared that we will be forced to marry (them)."

Like the Hazaras, Sikhs and Hindus in Afghanistan have also faced religious persecution, discrimination and violence. The majority of the once-thriving community of thousands fled to India, Europe and America during the decades of war and the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s.

Community leaders estimate that there are only about 550 Afghan Sikhs and Hindus left, according to the State Department. Meanwhile, security threats and a lack of government protection in recent years have put the groups at even greater risk.

In March last year, gunmen raided a Sikh religious complex in Kabul, killing 25 people, Reuters reported. The Islamic State extremist group claimed responsibility for the attack, saying in a statement that it was revenge for Indias treatment of Kashmiri Muslims.

"Some do not speak to us, and say that we are infidels," Khalsa said, referring to fellow Afghans. They tell us that it is a sin to be with us. We want to leave but it is so difficult right now.

There are signs that the Taliban are already targeting minorities. Amnesty International said recently that an investigation found the Taliban had murdered nine ethnic Hazara men after taking control of the country's Ghazni province last month. NBC News has not verified the reports.

Image: An Afghan waves the national flag as they celebrate the 102th Independence Day of Afghanistan in Kabul on Saturday. (Wakil Kohsar / AFP - Getty Images)

The secretary general of Amnesty International, Agns Callamard, said that the "cold-blooded" killings are a "horrific indicator" of what Taliban rule could bring.

For Ali, whose brother and sister live in Ghazni, news of those killings left him "completely numb."

"I fear they will be killed. And if they dont kill them, they will humiliate them, tease them, and finally leave them with a life not worth living," he said.

When the Taliban were last in control, Human Rights Watch reported on two massacres in which the victims were primarily Hazaras: one in January 2001, in which 170 men were shot publicly by a Taliban firing squad and another in May 2000, in which 31 bodies were found.

While Ali and Khalsa both would like to leave Afghanistan, the country's last known remaining Jew has said that he will remain in Kabul to look after the city's last synagogue.

Zabulon Simantov had the opportunity to flee to the United States but turned it down, according to Israel's Haaretz newspaper, citing the news outlet WION. Without him, the synagogue would shut down, bringing an end to Jewish life in the country, Haaretz reported.

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The Taliban takeover comes nearly 20 years after U.S.-led forces first toppled the regime in October 2001 for sheltering Osama bin Laden, the architect of the 9/11 terror attacks, and other Al Qaeda members. The invasion triggered sweeping changes for mostly urban women and girls, and ushered in a constitution that enshrined equal rights for men and women.

Since the Taliban's return, thousands of Afghans have either fled or are trying to get out, leading to chaotic scenes at Kabul's Hamid Karzai International Airport which have come to symbolize the desperation of many Afghans to leave.

Thursday's terrorist attack outside the airport which left more than 100 civilians and 13 U.S. service members dead andat least 180 injured, added to the uncertainty.

But after ISIS-K, known as Islamic State Khorasan, claimed responsibilty for the suicide bombing, crowds of Afghans returned to the airport the next day, risking everything in a bid to make it out of the country.

Afghan lawmaker Narindra Singh Khalsa, who is Sikh, was one of those desperate to leave. He was evacuated last Saturday along with 23 others to New Delhi by the Indian air force, according to Amarinder Singh, the chief minister of the northern Indian state of Punjab, which has a large Sikh population.

Speaking to reporters at the airport, Khalsa broke down in tears.

"Everything that was built in the last 20 years is finished," he said. "Everything is over."

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'Everything is over': Afghanistan's religious minorities fear Taliban takeover - Yahoo News