Sheikh Shir Ahmad Haqqani, acting minister of information and culture in the Taliban administration, defended the replacement of democracy with the system favoured by the Taliban on the fifth anniversary of the group’s return to power, saying the administration in its system and style of governance had “accepted no one’s order and will accept no one’s order in the future.”
In part of his remarks, he also claimed that the “Almighty God,” after years of hardship and sacrifice, had granted the people of Afghanistan the “great blessing of an Islamic system and freedom,” and that “Islamic sharia” had replaced “cursed democracy.”
The comments came as the Taliban administration has faced broad criticism over the past nearly five years over political and social restrictions, especially on women, education, the media and civil liberties. However, the published text of Haqqani’s remarks made no mention of those criticisms.
The Taliban administration’s Ministry of Information and Culture is one of the main bodies in the fields of media and cultural affairs, and comments by officials from the ministry usually reflect the Taliban’s official position on the political structure and the way the country is governed.
