\n In Afghanistan, where dissent is muzzled, one figure has emerged as an unlikely critic of the Taliban authorities: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a sidelined ex-warlord who is increasingly drawing official ire.\n<\/p>\n
\n The onetime anti-Soviet commander, and prime minister in 1996 and 1997, has made public calls for elections and girls' education -- taboo demands under the current administration.\n<\/p>\n
\n Hekmatyar, 76, left Afghanistan when the Taliban rose to power the first time but returned to Kabul in 2017 and remained even as legions of prominent figures fled the 2021 Taliban takeover.\n<\/p>\n
\n As chief of his Hezb-e-Islami radical party, he commands crowds, but analysts doubt the sincerity of his speeches and say there is little chance he can rally nationwide popular resistance.\n<\/p>\n
\n Nonetheless, his criticism has triggered a crackdown by the Taliban authorities, who have banned him from speaking at his mosque on Fridays, evicted him from his home, and pulled his party TV channel from the airwaves.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"You stayed after the victory,\" Taliban government Justice Minister Abdul Hakim Sharai told him at a public event in early April.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"If you didn't like it, you should have left.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Parties have no place in this system. According to law, taking the name of any party is a crime.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n Hekmatyar's willingness to flout authorities makes him a unique figure in today's Afghanistan, one of the only politicians still speaking out against Taliban officials when nearly all opposition has been muted.\n<\/p>\n
\n - Broadcasting dissent -\n<\/p>\n
\n With his long white beard, black turban and thin glasses, Hekmatyar broadcast a daring speech on his party channel Barya TV in March.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"In every political decision, people's presence is necessary, either directly or through their elected and trusted representatives,\" he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"Unfortunately, women are deprived of most of the rights that Islam has given them,\" he added in a reference to Taliban government edicts barring women and girls from education.\n<\/p>\n
\n But there is a gulf between what Hekmatyar says now and what he has done in the past.\n<\/p>\n
\n From the 1990s to the 2010s, his insurgents committed civilian massacres, assassinations of intellectuals and acid attacks on women, according to human rights monitors.\n<\/p>\n
\n His bombing of Kabul during the civil war from 1992 to 1996 caused thousands of deaths and earned him the nickname the \"Butcher of Kabul\".\n<\/p>\n
\n His recent comeuppance has not been linked to alleged war crimes, but to his challenges to Kabul's new rulers.\n<\/p>\n
\n In December 2022, a university linked to his party was closed and he was banned from making Friday speeches at a mosque he built on government grounds.\n<\/p>\n
\n At the end of March, he was forced out of his residence, which had been provided by the former foreign-backed government after he returned from 20 years of exile and was guaranteed immunity.\n<\/p>\n
\n And this month, Barya TV was blocked on grounds of \"violating Islamic values\".\n<\/p>\n
\n \"These are not positive signs for him,\" said a former Western diplomat familiar with Afghanistan.\n<\/p>\n
\n But authorities \"are a little stuck with him, because he benefits from a network of support and protection within the Taliban -- some of his former commanders\".\n<\/p>\n
\n - Kabul and Kandahar -\n<\/p>\n
\n A senior member of Hekmatyar's Hezb-e-Islami party insisted he \"is not going to be silent\" but his remarks are not designed to \"provoke\", rather to outline the party's vision.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"We believe Islam is not a dictatorship. The head of the Taliban is allergic\" to this belief, he said.\n<\/p>\n
\n Analysts say there is a measure of division within the Taliban -- between the ostensible government in Kabul and powerbrokers in southern Kandahar, from where supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada issues directives.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"There's a split between the views of the Kabulis and Kandaharis\" on how to manage Hekmatyar, his party official said.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"The Kabulis are opposed to the Taliban chief's view that he should be kept quiet.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n It's not Hekmatyar's \"intention to overthrow the regime\", the official added. But he would like the Taliban \"from Kabul to rise\" and \"for there to be a start from within this regime\".\n<\/p>\n
\n A spokesman for the Taliban government did not respond to a request for comment.\n<\/p>\n
\n The Taliban government is not yet recognised by any foreign powers, some of which have been lobbying Afghan authorities to agree to a more inclusive rule.\n<\/p>\n
\n But an official from the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, a rights organisation, said Hekmatyar \"just wants to attract the attention of the West.\"\n<\/p>\n
\n \"His ideology is the same as the Taliban,\" the official said on condition of anonymity. \"He is against democracy and women's rights\".\n<\/p>\n
\n \"He is positioning himself,\" said the ex-diplomat.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"He believes he has a role to play... in case the government evolves.\n<\/p>\n
\n \"He's also sending a message to the international community that he's still a force to be reckoned with.\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In Afghanistan, where dissent is muzzled, one figure has emerged as an unlikely critic of the Taliban authorities: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a sidelined ex-warlord who is increasingly drawing official ire. The onetime anti-Soviet commander, and prime minister in 1996 and 1997, has made public calls for elections and girls' education -- taboo demands under the current […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[553],"tags":[],"ji_location":[],"class_list":["post-131352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-live-feed"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n