Members:
Omar Ahmad Parwani (20170703)
Rahila Farhmand (20170703)
Nasrin Noristani (20170703)
Asar Hakimi (20170703)

Background:
The movement was recently established in the wake of a string of security incidents in Kabul, especially that of the May 31, 2017  truck bombing that killed an estimated 180 people.  However, two days later, the movement demonstrated in downtown Kabul. Security forces opened fire on them, killing at least five protesters.

Two groups seemed to feature at the core of the protests: members of a social and cultural association that goes under the name of “Khorasanian” and members of “Jombesh-e Guzar” (Transition Movement). The Khorasanian are young Tajiks who promote ancient Persian traditions and the use of Persian (Dari) words instead of Arabic and Pashto loanwords in their language in a bid to counter what they see as Pashto domination in official terminology. Their name refers to the historical Persian-speaking region to the northwest of the Hindukush and used as an alternative to “Afghanistan.” Jombesh-e Guzar announced its existence on 11 May 2017 and its aim as “facilitating transition to a desired political situation.”
The Transition Movement’s leadership seems to overlap with that of the Khorasanian. They are also involved in party politics and in particular have relations with Jamiat-e Islami (Jamiat itself has an ethnocentric Tajik strand). But that does not mean that their agendas are identical or that the Khorasanian do Jamiat’s bidding. This group, however, shared the more radical demands directed against the government, which had been articulated even before the protests, by Jamiat leaders such as Ismail Khan and Zia Massud.