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 administration.
Hekmatyar, 76, left Afghanistan when the Taliban rose to power for the first time but returned to Kabul in 2017 and remained even as legions of prominent figures fled the 2021 Taliban takeover.
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.
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.
“You stayed after the victory,” Taliban government Justice Minister Abdul Hakim Sharai told him at a public event in early April.
“If you didn’t like it, you should have left.
“Parties have no place in this system. According to law, taking the name of any party is a crime.”
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.
