In one of the orders recently issued by the Taliban intelligence, the activities of fundamentalist groups such as Hizb ut-Tahrir, Jamiat Eslah and the student branch of this extremist group, Najm, have been banned.
The activity of the above-mentioned groups during the former republic regime was also causing concerns among analysts in Afghanistan, and the ideas they promoted were known to be the source of instability in the country. However, no action was taken to officially ban these organizations and the like. This practice was criticized by some observers, but the spirit of democracy, even in its very weak form, prevented such a move.
The spirit of tolerance, recognition of pluralism, believing in the basic rights of citizens in non-violent activities, granting freedom of speech and respecting religious freedoms are among the basic features of secular democracies, whose theoretical foundations were laid by the sages of the Enlightenment era. For the institutionalization of these fundamental principles, a lot of effort was made, from the theoretical critique of dogmatism to challenging the monopolistic authorities and breath-taking practical struggles that opened the arena for everyone. It was after that that religion and other institutions reached a peaceful coexistence, the church and the university stopped fighting, and religious and non-religious people got equal rights. It is due to the same process that today religious activities, including Islamic activities, are free in Western countries and there are no restrictions on mosques and Islamic centers, whether they are Salafi, Ikhwani, Tablighi, or Sufi.
The fundamentalist groups in our countries are alien to tolerance, pluralism, freedom of expression and other fundamental rights of foreign citizens, and they consider them as part of the cultural invasion of the West and fight against them with all their might. When these principles are not recognized, exclusivity, totalitarianism, tyranny, coercion and oppression take their place. This experience has been clearly observed in each of the countries that have come under the control of these groups in the last half century. The Islamists of Sudan had narrowed the field to the cause of the Muslim Brotherhood and others, the Islamists of Iran have narrowed the field to the national-religious, reformists and others, and now the Afghan Taliban have closed the field to Hizb ut-Tahrir, Jamiat Eslah and others.
These groups advance an undeclared alliance as long as they are against the democrats and the so-called secularists. In the past two decades, Hizb ut-Tahrir, Jamiat Eslah and their like-minded people followed the same path as the leadership of the Taliban in the grand strategy. They all unitedly called the mentioned principles and values ”intellectual invasion” that is, an ideological war, and they left the society from it. They enthusiastically sang about the defeat of the West and praised the victory of the so-called Mujahideen. Now that their desired system is in place, their war has begun. It is only in the light of democracy that there is room for all groups, without one trying to destroy the other by force. The refuge of the leaders of these extremist groups from the Islamic system of the Taliban to the secular system of Turkey is an instructive lesson for those who have reason to think.