Afghanistan
Women’s protest in Kabul broken up with warning shots
Taliban fighters on the back of a pickup truck patrol the streets of Kabul (archive). In recent months, the militant Islamists have once again massively restricted women’s fundamental rights. photo
© Oliver Weiken/dpa
The Taliban have been in power again in Afghanistan for almost a year. Since then, women’s rights have been massively restricted again. A protest in the streets of Kabul is stalled.
In the Afghan capital Kabul, the militant Islamist Taliban ended a peaceful protest by women on Saturday with warning shots. Footage circulated online showed the Taliban firing shots and physically attacking the women.
The dozens of women demonstrated against their discrimination by the Islamists since their return to power. At least four journalists were temporarily arrested, according to a journalists’ association. The Taliban have been back in power in Afghanistan for almost exactly a year – August 15, 2021.
On the fringes of the protests, an Afghan and three foreign journalists were temporarily arrested, a spokesman for the Association of Independent Journalists in Afghanistan (AIJA) told the German Press Agency. They were only released after more than four hours. The organization Reporters Without Borders accused the Taliban of making the work of journalists more difficult with a wave of arbitrary arrests and censorship.
Injured in bomb explosion
Also on Saturday, four people, including two Taliban, were injured in a bomb explosion in Kabul, a security official told Tolo News. The bomb was attached to a motorcycle. The background is still unclear. After the international troops withdrew, the Taliban massively restricted women’s basic rights again – as in the years before 2001, when they were once in power. Protests are suppressed.
A participant in Saturday’s demonstration said in a video: “We are in a pharmacy. They locked us in here.” The women sang “Food, Work and Freedom” as they marched through the center of the capital. They also chanted that they were tired of the discrimination. Another video showed women cornered in a closed location.
Taliban Minister: Tradition and belief require restrictions
Taliban Minister Mohammad Chalid Hanafi, who enacted the restrictions on women’s rights, defended the regulations. As Minister for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, it is his job to implement Islamic teachings: “If it is right for a strange man and woman to sit on the same bench and they call this women’s and human rights, then our culture, our tradition, our faith, our religion, Allah and his prophet do not allow us to do this.”
In a report, the human rights organization Amnesty International complained, among other things, that women in Afghanistan are only allowed to undertake longer trips with a male companion. Escaping domestic violence has also become more difficult for women. Higher schools for girls have been closed since the militant Islamists took power. Exceptions are some private schools and public schools in some regions. Many professions are now also closed to women.
Impending hunger crisis
Added to this is a desolate economic situation and a looming hunger crisis. The UN children’s fund Unicef calls for more help from abroad for the population. In the current year, only a third of the required money has been made available, wrote Germany Managing Director Christian Schneider in the “Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger”. The food supply is catastrophic, especially for children. Girls would be cut off from education. “When everyday life is as merciless as it is on this anniversary, then the right to education is particularly important.”