AFGHANISTAN: Notorious Afghan warlord and ex-prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar returned to public life Saturday after more than 20 years in exile, calling on the Taliban to lay down their weapons and join a “caravan of peace.”
Hekmatyar, white-bearded and clad in his trademark black turban, spoke to supporters at a gathering in Laghman province widely broadcast in Afghanistan, where his return to the political mainstream months after etching a landmark peace deal with Kabul has been hugely controversial.
“Come for God’s sake, come and give up fighting which the victims of this war are Afghans,” he said.
“Come and join this caravan of peace... Set your goals, and I will be with you on your good goals.”
Known widely in the international press as the “Butcher of Kabul,” Hekmatyar is one of the most infamous warlords of Afghanistan’s history, chiefly remembered for his role in the bloody civil war of the 1990s.
But the peace deal signed with Kabul in September, Afghanistan’s first such agreement since the Taliban launched their insurgency in 2001, paved the way for his political comeback after more than two decades.
Hekmatyar, who heads the now largely dormant Hezb-i-Islami militant group, is the latest in a series of controversial figures that Kabul has sought to reintegrate in the post-Taliban era by granting judicial immunity for past crimes.
The pattern has been well established by other warlords, such as General Abdul Rashid Dostum, currently the country’s first vice president.
The peace agreement inked with Afghanistan’s second-biggest militant group marked a symbolic victory for President Ashraf Ghani, who has struggled to revive peace talks with the more powerful Taliban.
But it has sparked revulsion from human rights groups and residents of the capital who survived the civil war.
A prominent anti-Soviet commander in the 1980s, Hekmatyar — due to return to Kabul on Saturday — stands accused of killing thousands of people in the city during the 1992-1996 civil war.
During his exile he was widely believed to be in hiding in Pakistan, but his group claimed he remained in Afghanistan.
Infamous Afghan warlord returns to public life after exile
Infamous Afghan warlord returns to public life after exile
Activist Peter Tatchell arrested over ‘globalize the intifada’ placard
- Arrest in London during Saturday protest an ‘attack on free speech,’ his foundation says
- Intifada ‘does not mean violence and is not antisemitic,’ veteran campaigner claims
LONDON: Prominent activist Peter Tatchell was arrested at a pro-Palestine march in central London, The Independent reported.
According to his foundation, the 74-year-old was arrested for holding a placard that said: “Globalize the intifada: Nonviolent resistance. End Israel’s occupation of Gaza & West Bank.”
The Peter Tatchell Foundation said in a statement that the activist labeled his Saturday arrest as an “attack on free speech.”
It added: “The police claimed the word intifada is unlawful. The word intifada is not a crime in law. The police are engaged in overreach by making it an arrestable offense.
“This is part of a dangerous trend to increasingly restrict and criminalize peaceful protests.”
Tatchell described the word “intifada,” an Arab term, as meaning “uprising, rebellion or resistance against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
“It does not mean violence and is not antisemitic. It is against the Israeli regime and its war crimes, not against Jewish people.”
According to his foundation, Tatchell was transported to Sutton police station to be detained following his arrest.
In December last year, London’s Metropolitan Police said that pro-Palestine protesters chanting “globalize the intifada” would face arrest, attributing the new rules to a “changing context” in the wake of the Bondi Beach attack in Australia.
“Officers policing the Palestine Coalition protest have arrested a 74-year-old man on suspicion of a public order offense. He was seen carrying a sign including the words ‘globalize the intifada’,” the Metropolitan Police said on X.
According to a witness, Tatchell had been marching near police officers with the placard for about a mile when the group came across a counterprotest.
He was then stopped and “manhandled by 10 officers,” said Jacky Summerfield, who accompanied Tatchell at the protest.
“I was shoved back behind a cordon of officers and unable to speak to him after that,” she said.
“I couldn’t get any closer to hear anything more than that; it was for Section 5 (of the Public Order Act).
“There had been no issue until that. He was walking near the police officers. Nobody had said or done anything.”
