Afghanistan’s former minister of Information and Culture surrenders to Taliban

Kabul [Afghanistan], May 12 (ANI): Afghanistan’s former minister of Information and Culture, Mohammad Tahir Zaheer has surrendered to Taliban forces, according to Khaama Press.

Sources confirmed to Khaama Press that Tahir Zaheer, former minister and governor of Afghanistan’s Bamyan Province, surrendered to the Taliban forces on Wednesday.

As per the report, he surrendered to the Taliban in the Dara Soof district of Samangan province.

Sources also said that the Taliban forces have detained, imprisoned, and tortured Zaheer’s family members and relatives, leading to his surrender, Khaama Press reported.

Zaheer and the Taliban’s Hazara leader Mawlavi Mehdi fought with the Taliban last year. After Mehdi’s death, Zaheer continued to fight with the Taliban.

Zaheer’s family has not commented on his surrender. It is also unclear under what condition he surrendered to the Taliban forces.

Meanwhile, it was recently reported that an increasingly unstable and volatile Afghanistan is causing worry to the world.

Worsening human rights, in particular, women’s and girls’ rights, poverty, hunger, terrorism and the spread of drug trafficking, are among the issues that the people of Afghanistan have been facing under Taliban rule.

World leaders under the aegis of the United Nations recently held a closed-door meeting in Doha to reinvigorate international engagement around these key issues and to engage the Taliban government.

Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General said that the meeting was about developing a common international approach, not about recognition of the de-facto Taliban authorities.

The participants are worried about the stability of Afghanistan and have expressed those serious concerns.

They relate to the persistent presence of terrorist organisations, a risk for the country, the region and further afield.

The lack of inclusivity, which importantly includes human rights in particular those of women and girls, was severely undermined by recent Taliban decisions and the spread of drug trafficking with all its dramatic consequences.