VANCOUVER, CANADA – Sources in Kabul say the Taliban have arrested Sayed Jawad Hussaini, the leader of the Justice and Development Party, and Jafar Joya, his office manager.
The two were arrested at 3:00 PM after lunch today, March 22, from their office in Dasht-e-Barchi in Western Kabul and transferred to an unknown location. The reason for Mr. Husseini and Mr. Joya’s arrest is unclear. The Taliban have yet not commented.
The sources KabulNow spoke to said that Mr. Hussaini were involved a case of complaint the communities in Western Kabul had filed against an Iranian backed cleric. Earlier in the year, community leaders, including Afghanistan’s highest Shia religious authority publicly called on Taliban to take action against Sayyid Esa Hussaini Mazari, the head of Tabian Cultural Center, who had claimed that there were hundreds of Christian churches and brothel houses in the neighberhood under the previous government.
Community leaders had signed a written complaint against Mr. Mazari, calling his unfounded accusations slander punishable according to Islamic laws.
Taliban police summoned Mr. Husseini Mazari for questioning on February 6, but has not arrested him yet.
Although the community, mostly Shia Hazaras in Western Kabul, was heartened by initial indications of the regime taking action against Mr. Mazari, who is directly backed by Iran’s Supreme Leader and the IRGC, recent arrests show that the Taliban are quietly punishing the community.
The regime’s arbitrary arrest for a myriad of reasons continue across the country. Local sources in Panjshir province say that Taliban’s intelligence unit has arrested two people, including a former government soldier, in the province.
Sources name these two individuals as Saber and Abdul Rahman and say they were arrested on Thursday, March 21, from the capital of Panjshir province. According to sources, Saber was unemployed after the fall of the former government and was living an ordinary civilian life.
The reason for the arrest of these two individuals is still unclear. The Taliban have not commented anything about it.
In the past, the Taliban had detained residents of Panjshir on charges of collaborating with the armed opposition groups to the regime, including the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan (NRF) led by Ahmad Masoud.
