Taliban will never change from their murderous regime they say

A campaign group made up of Afghan refugees has slammed BBC’s Panorama for alleging the Taliban had changed and were no longer as extreme.

Glasgow Afghan United has called on the BBC to think again about the broadcast, due to air tonight at 7.30pm.

The group was responding to the BBC journalist John Simpson’s piece in The Spectator where he says the Taliban seems different from the outlandish extremists of 1996-2001 who hung televisions from lamp-posts and searched homes. Now, no vigilantes roam the streets, he said.

The programme follows journalist John Simpson in Afghanistan as he compares the country to his previous visits.

He continues: “Girls’ schools still operate, though most are only half full because people are scared that their daughters might be punished in future for being educated. There have been revenge killings, and many who worked for the Western forces are still in hiding. But the full savagery of old hasn’t returned.”

However a spokesperson for Glasgow Afghan United said: “We can state that this is categorically untrue. Every day there are disappearances, with people taken to who-knows-where, with women amongst those going missing.

“Every day there are gangs of Taliban demanding money from businesses and taking cars from families.

“Every day girls are in fear for their futures and the “education” they receive in these strangled schools is not true education to empower them and prepare them for an independent future. It is not what they deserve; it is not what the Afghan people deserve.”

Simpson calls for the West to build a “new relationship” with the Taliban but for ordinary Afghans, the slightest false accusation of involvement with a terror group will destroy their chances of life in the west, says the campaign group.

The spokesperson added: “The damage being done to Afghanistan and the Afghan people, who do not support or accept this terror group, is almost beyond understanding. But we are Afghans and we do understand it. 

“We urge the Panorama programme, the BBC and Mr Simpson to think again.

“Do not tell the world the Taliban has changed. It has not. It never will.”