DOHA: The Taliban will be absent from UN-led talks that open Monday in Qatar on how to handle Afghanistan’s rulers and press them to ease a ban on women working and girls going to school.
Envoys from the United States, China and Russia as well as major European aid donors and key neighbors such as Pakistan are among representatives from about 25 countries and groups called to the two days of talks by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
The Taliban government has not been invited, however, and ahead of the meeting the question of recognition of the administration has loomed large.
A small group of Afghan women staged a weekend protest march in Kabul to oppose any moves to recognize the rulers who returned to power in August 2021.
In an open letter to the Doha meeting released Sunday, a coalition of Afghan women’s groups said they were “outraged” that any country would consider formal ties because of the record of the government that says its handling of women’s rights is “an internal social issue.”
The United Nations and United States have insisted that recognition is not on the agenda.
Rights’ groups fears have been fueled by UN deputy secretary-general Amina Mohammed, who said last month that the Doha meeting could find “baby steps” that lead to a “principled recognition” of the Taliban government.
The UN said the comments were misinterpreted. No country has established formal ties with the Taliban administration and UN membership can only be decided by the UN General Assembly.
Ahead of his arrival in Doha, Guterres’ office said the meeting “is intended to achieve a common understanding within the international community on how to engage with the Taliban” on women’s and girls’ rights, inclusive governance, countering terrorism and drug trafficking.
“Any kind of recognition of the Taliban is completely off the table,” US State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said last week.
Since ousting a foreign-backed government in 2021, the Taliban authorities have imposed an austere version of sharia law that the United Nations has labelled “gender-based apartheid.”
Women have been barred from most secondary education and universities, and prevented from working in most government jobs as well as UN agencies and NGOs.
Though divided on many disputes, the UN Security Council powers united on Thursday to condemn the curbs on Afghan women and girls and urge all countries to seek “an urgent reversal” of the policies.
Diplomats and observers say, however, that the Doha meeting highlights the quandary faced by the international community in handling Afghanistan, which the UN considers its biggest humanitarian crisis with millions depending on food aid.
Amina Mohammed said it was “clear” that the Taliban authorities want recognition. Formal UN ties would help the government reclaim billions of dollars of desperately needed funds seized abroad after it took power.
But diplomats from several countries involved in the Doha talks said this would not be possible until there is a change on women’s rights. The Afghan foreign ministry said after last week’s UN vote that “diversity should be respected and not politicized.”
The UN chief is to give the Doha meeting an update on a review of the world body’s critical relief operation in Afghanistan, ordered in April after authorities had stopped Afghan women from working with UN agencies, diplomats said.
The UN has said it faces an “appalling choice” over whether to maintain its huge operation in the country of 38 million. The review is scheduled to be completed on Friday.
UN holds Afghanistan crisis talks in Qatar, without Taliban
https://arab.news/bgxam
UN holds Afghanistan crisis talks in Qatar, without Taliban
- The UN and US have insisted that recognition is not on the agenda
- No country has established formal ties with the Taliban administration
National security trial for Hong Kong’s Tiananmen vigil organizers to open
- Three government-vetted judges will preside over the trial, which is expected to last 75 days
HONG KONG: Two pro-democracy activists behind a group that for decades organized a vigil that commemorated people killed in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989 will stand trial on Thursday, in another landmark case brought under a China-imposed national security law that has practically crushed protests in the semiautonomous Chinese city.
Critics say their case shows that Beijing’s promise to keep the city’s Western-style civil liberties intact for 50 years when the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997 has weakened over time. But the city’s government said its law enforcement actions were evidence-based and strictly in accordance with the law.
Chow Hang-tung and Lee Cheuk-yan, former leaders of the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China, were charged with incitement to subversion in September 2021 under the law. They are accused of inciting others to organize, plan or act through unlawful means with a view to subvert state power, and if convicted, they face a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
A third leader of the group, Albert Ho, is expected to plead guilty, his lawyer said previously. This might result in a sentence reduction.
Before sunrise, dozens of people were in line outside the court building to secure a seat in the public gallery under a cold-weather warning.
Tang Ngok-kwan, a former core member of the alliance, has been queuing since Monday afternoon. He said he wanted to show support for his former colleagues in detention.
“They use their freedom to exchange for a dignified defense,” he said. “It’s about being accountable to history.”
Former pro-democracy district councilor Chan Kim-kam, a former vigil-goer and also Chow’s friend, stayed awake the whole night outside the building.
“We need to witness this, regardless of the results,” she said.
Trial expected to last 75 days
Three government-vetted judges will preside over the trial, which is expected to last 75 days. Videos related to the alliance’s years of work will be part of the prosecution evidence.
Chow, also a lawyer defending herself, tried to throw out her case in November, arguing the prosecution had not specified what “unlawful means” were involved. But the judges rejected her bid.
The judges explained their decision on Wednesday, saying the prosecution made it clear that “unlawful means” meant ending the Chinese Communist Party’s rule and violating the Chinese constitution. The prosecution accused the defendants of promoting the call of “ending one-party rule” by inciting people’s hatred of and disgust over the state’s power, the judges said.
The prosecution, they said, had pointed to the defendants’ media interviews and public speeches related to the alliance to sustain the group’s operation and promote that call to others after the security law took effect in June 2020. Although the scope of the charge was relatively wide, the prosecutors had provided sufficient details for the defendants, they added.
The court will not allow the trial to become a tool of political suppression in the name of law, the judges said.
Prosecutors are expected to detail their case this week.
Urania Chiu, lecturer in law at Oxford Brookes University, said the case goes to the heart of freedom of expression.
“The prosecution case hinges on the argument that the Alliance’s general call for ‘bringing the one-party rule to an end’ constitutes subversion without more, which amounts to criminalizing an idea, a political ideal that is very far from being actualized,” she said.
Sarah Brooks, Amnesty International’s Deputy Regional Director, alleged the case was about “rewriting history and punishing those who refuse to forget the victims of the Tiananmen crackdown.”
Alliance’s disbandment a blow to civil society
The alliance was best known for organizing the only large-scale public commemoration of the 1989 crackdown in China for decades. Tens of thousands of people attended it annually until authorities banned it in 2020, citing anti-pandemic measures.
After COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, the park was occupied instead by a carnival organized by pro-Beijing groups. Those who tried to commemorate the event near the site were detained.
Before the alliance voted to disband in September 2021, police had sought details about the group, saying they had reasonable grounds to believe it was acting as a foreign agent. The alliance rejected the allegations and refused to cooperate.
Chow, Tang, another core member of the alliance were convicted in a separate case in 2023 for failing to provide authorities with information on the group and were each sentenced to 4 1/2 months in prison. But the trio overturned their convictions at the city’s top court in March 2025.
Chow, Lee and Ho have been in custody, awaiting the trial’s opening, which has been postponed twice.
Beijing said the 2020 security law was necessary for the city’s stability following the 2019 protests, which sent hundreds of thousands of people onto the streets.
The same law has convicted dozens of other leading pro-democracy activists, including pro-democracy former media mogul Jimmy Lai last month. Dozens of civil society groups have closed since the law took effect.
