The Taliban has announced the establishment of a court for restitution of usurped lands and stated that the purpose of this court is to deal with the usurped lands for twenty years.
This action takes place after recently the governor of Balkh, who is one of the people close to Mullah Haibatullah, requested the municipality of this province in a letter to arrange the list of properties of several officials and political leaders and send it to this department. On the other hand, a YouTuber has been ordered by the Taliban to depict the houses and properties of former officials and jihadi leaders. In the first step, this YouTuber depicted the house of Atta Mohammad Noor, the former governor of Balkh and the executive chairman of the Jamiat_party, and a few days ago, he displayed the house and properties of Mohammad Mohaqiq on YouTube.
This action of the Taliban faced a wave of criticism from their supporters. Because they consider this work of the Taliban to be a violation of people’s privacy and consider it against the principles of human rights.
The creation of the court for the restitution of the lands usurped by the Taliban, even after highlighting the properties of former officials and political leaders, shows a systematic and planned program. Because the Taliban, under the shadow of investigating this case, are trying to continue usurping lands, and forced migration of Hazaras and people of the north through their court. As the nomads are still usurping the lands of the Hazaras with the order of Amir Abd al-Rahman and consider that order as a Shari’a order. The creation of this court is similar to Dar al-Aftai during the era of Amir Abdur-Rahman, in which the court mullahs justified Abd al-Rahman’s actions under the name of Amir Farman Farman God and gave it a religious flavor.
In the meantime, the Kochis acted as the executive army of Amir Abdur-Rahman in the area of land grabbing, and on the other hand, the Kochis have been a financial and looting arm alongside the tribal governments until today. For twenty years, many efforts were made to relocate the carriers in northern Afghanistan and Hazara provinces. This process was done with the help of Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani in a very large way and with government facilities. There were reports in 2011 that Afghan army helicopters were transporting many people who did not speak Farsi to northern Afghanistan, and the government was distributing land to them in the name of immigrants.
Now, by imitating the policies of Amir Abdul Rahman Khan, the Taliban are trying to make their actions appear legal and legitimate by creating such a court.
There are reports that the Taliban are moving the families belonging to this group and usurping the lands of the Hazaras in Bamiyan. Last year, the Taliban started burning people’s houses in the northern provinces to force them to leave their homes. Not long ago, a video was received by Saday_e_ Shahrvand news agency, which showed that Taliban people forcibly usurped the lands of the Hazara people in Saripol province and were killing them and destroyed their fields with tractors. Also, several people were killed and injured in this incident. Therefore, what the Taliban are currently doing is the continuation of Abdul Rahmani’s policy.
What makes the Taliban government more like the government of Amir Abdur_Rahman Khan; Genocide policy of the Hazaras, which includes forced migration, land usurpation and the creation of a court to investigate land usurpation.
March 30th, 2023
Nasrullah Mohseni
