KABUL: Flag-waving protesters took to several Afghan cities on Thursday and several people were killed when Taliban fighters fired on a crowd, a witness said, in the first popular opposition to the militants since they seized the capital.
“Our flag our identity,” a crowd of men and some women waving black, red and green national flags shouted in Kabul, a video clip posted on social media showed.
One woman walked with a flag wrapped around her shoulders. Afghanistan celebrates its 1919 independence from British control on August 19.
A Taliban spokesman was not immediately available for comment.
In Asadabad, capital of Kunar province, several people were killed during a rally but it was not clear if the casualties resulted from the firing or from a stampede that it triggered, witness Mohammed Salim said.
“Hundreds of people came out on the streets,” Salim said. “At first I was scared and didn’t want to go but when I saw one of my neighbors joined in I took out the flag I have at home.”
“Several people were killed and injured in the stampede and firing by the Taliban.”
Protesters also took to the streets of the eastern city of Jalalabad and a district of Paktia province.
On Wednesday, Taliban fighters fired at protesters waving in flag Jalalabad, killing three, witnesses and media reported.
In some places, protesters tore down white Taliban flags, according to media. Media reported similar scenes in Asadabad and another eastern city, Khost, on Wednesday.
First Vice President Amrullah Saleh, who is trying to rally opposition to the Taliban, expressed support for the protests.
“Salute those who carry the national flag and thus stand for dignity of the nation,” he said on Twitter.
Saleh said on Tuesday he was in Afghanistan and the “legitimate caretaker president” after President Ashraf Ghani fled as the Taliban took Kabul on Sunday.
Call for end to airport crowds.
The crackdown on protests will raise new doubts about Taliban assurances they have changed since their 1996-2001 rule when they severely restricted women, staged public executions and blew up ancient Buddhist statues.
They now say they want peace, will not take revenge against old enemies and would respect the rights of women within the framework of Islamic law.
While Kabul has been generally calm since Taliban forces entered on Sunday, the airport has been in chaos as people rushed for a way out of the country.
Twelve people have been killed in and around the airport since then, a NATO and a Taliban official said. The deaths were caused either by gun shots or by stampedes, the Taliban official said.
He urged people who do not have the legal right to travel to go home. “We don’t want to hurt anyone at the airport,” said the Taliban official, who declined to be identified.
On Wednesday, witnesses said Taliban gunmen prevented people from getting into the airport compound.
A Taliban official said commanders and soldiers had fired into the air to disperse the crowd. The situation was more calm on Thursday, witnesses said.
The United States and other Western powers pressed on with the evacuation of their nationals and some of their Afghan staff from the capital’s airport, from where about 8,000 people have been flown out since Sunday, a Western security official said.
Under a pact negotiated last year by former President Donald Trump’s administration, the United States agreed to withdraw its forces in exchange for a Taliban guarantee they would not let Afghanistan be used to launch terrorist attacks.
The Taliban also agreed not to attack foreign forces as they left.
US President Joe Biden said US forces would remain until the evacuation of Americans was finished, even if that meant staying past an August 31 US deadline for withdrawal.
Several killed in flag-waving protests against Taliban in Afghanistan
https://arab.news/4q6gj
Several killed in flag-waving protests against Taliban in Afghanistan
- Protesters took to the streets in Kabul, Jalalabad, Asadabad and Khost cities
- Crackdown raises new doubts about Taliban assurances
Justice Department sees no basis for civil rights probe in Minnesota ICE shooting, official says
- And on Tuesday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement that “there is currently no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation”
WASHINGTON: The Justice Department does not believe there is currently any basis to open a criminal civil rights investigation into the killing of a woman by a US Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis, a top department official said Tuesday.
The decision to keep the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division out of the investigation into the fatal shooting of Renee Good marks a sharp departure from past administrations, which have moved quickly to probe shootings of civilians by law enforcement officials for potential civil rights offenses.
While an FBI probe is ongoing, lawyers in the Civil Rights Division were informed last week that they would not play a role in the investigation at this time, according to two people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal department deliberations.
And on Tuesday, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said in a statement that “there is currently no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation.” The statement, first reported by CNN, did not elaborate on how the department had reached a conclusion that no investigation was warranted.
Federal officials have said that the officer acted in self-defense and that the driver of the Honda was engaging in “an act of domestic terrorism” when she pulled forward toward him.
The quick pronouncement by administration officials before any meaningful investigation could be completed has raised concerns about the federal government’s determination to conduct a thorough review of the chain of events precipitating the shooting. Minnesota officials have also raised alarm after federal officials blocked state investigators from accessing evidence and declared that Minnesota has no jurisdiction to investigate the killing.
Also this week, roughly half a dozen federal prosecutors in Minnesota resigned and several supervisors in the criminal section of the Civil Rights Division in Washington gave notice of their departures amid turmoil over the federal probe, according to people familiar with the matter.
Among the departures in Minnesota is First Assistant US Attorney Joseph Thompson, who had been leading the sprawling investigation and prosecution of fraud schemes in the state, two other people said. At least four other prosecutors in the Minnesota US attorney’s office joined Thompson in resigning amid a period of tension in the office, the people said. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.
They are the latest in an exodus of career Justice Department attorneys who have resigned or been forced out over concerns over political pressure or shifting priorities under the Trump administration. Hundreds of Justice Department lawyers have been fired or have left voluntarily over the last year.
Minnesota Democratic lawmakers criticized the departures, with Sen. Amy Klobuchar, a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, calling the resignations “a loss for our state and for public safety” and warning that prosecutions should not be driven by politics. Gov. Tim Walz said the departures raised concerns about political pressure on career Justice Department officials.
The resignations of the lawyers in the Civil Rights Division’s criminal section, including its chief, were announced to staff on Monday, days after lawyers were told the section would not be involved in the probe. The Justice Department on Tuesday said those prosecutors had requested to participate in an early retirement program “well before the events in Minnesota,” and added that “any suggestion to the contrary is false.”
Founded nearly 70 years ago, the Civil Rights Division has a long history of investigating shootings by law enforcement even though prosecutors typically need to clear a high bar to mount a criminal prosecution.
In prior administrations, the division has moved quickly to open and publicly announce such investigations, not only to reflect federal jurisdiction over potential civil rights violations but also in hopes of soothing community angst that sometimes accompanies shootings involving law enforcement.
“The level of grief, tension and anxiety on the ground in Minnesota is not surprising,” said Kristen Clarke, who led the Civil Rights Division under the Biden administration. “And historically the federal government has played an important role by being a neutral and impartial agency committing its resources to conducting a full and fair investigation, and the public loses out when that doesn’t happen,” she said.
In Minneapolis, for instance, the Justice Department during the first Trump administration opened a civil rights investigation into the 2020 death of George Floyd at the hands of city police officers that resulted in criminal charges. The Minneapolis Police Department was separately scrutinized by the Biden administration for potential systemic civil rights violations through what’s known as a “pattern or practice” investigation, a type of police reform inquiry that is out of favor in the current Trump administration Justice Department.
