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Dear visitor,
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Gino d'Artali
Indepth investigative journalist
1 August - 17 August 2021
Starting around the 1th. of August 2021 it seemed as if the world stood still
with the taliban sweeping over Afghanistan and taking power again from the
untill then ex-president Ashraf Ghani (who fled the country) and simultanously
also, 15 August 2021, took in Kabul and to finalize their job drove out the US
and UK forces and affiliates.
The international press had almost difficulties to keep up with the chances.
Cryfreedom.net, an online international magazine centered around the
international women's day and the atrocities against women, and relying a lot,
but not only, on international newspapers and broadcasters all of a sudden got a
blanc concerning the cryfreedom's topics.
But you and I know that I'm a radical feminist so I refused to give up my work
and moreso to started a new special titled 'Afghani women resisting' and to
write opinion articles about it and about the international women's day and the
atrocities against women in general because indeed it's only a matter of time
before I'll need and report about it when it happens, which it does already, to
Afghani women.
Lucky me and being investigative I now have 2 sources that will help me a lot to
continue to inform you. They are:
- the Afghani journalist Zahra. S. Rahimi. and
- Rukhshana Media Afghanistan:
Rukhshana Media was created in November 2020 by Zahra Joya to focus on stories
by and about Afghan women. The name 'Rukhshana refers to a teenager from Ghor
Province called Rukhshana who was accused of adultery and stoned to death in
2015. A video of the lapidation circulated widely, gaining widespread
international attention. Rukhshana's killing was one of several cases of honour
killings of women fleeing forced marriages or of women rape victims in Ghor
Province in the mid 2010s.
Themes published by Rukhshana Media include 'women's reproductive health,
domestic and sexual violence, and gender discrimination. During the 2021 Taliban
offensive, Rukhshana Media reported on expectations that the Taliban would
violate women's rights and that divorced women remaining single expected to be
at risk from the Taliban. In July 2021, Rukhshana Media together with Time and
The Fuller Project reported on school being forbidden to 'thousands' of girls in
Taliban-occupied areas of Afghanistan, with teachers at girls' schools receiving
death threats and being refused authorisation to teach. According to the report,
only girls up to the age of 12 were allowed to attend school, they were required
to wear niqabs or burqas, and the number of hours teaching the Quran was
increased.
Shukrah to both.
Gino d'Artali
Indepth investigative journalist.
31 August 2021
Opinion.
Now that the taliban took control over Afghanistan the Western countries
foresees already tens of thousands Afghanis trying to flee to the West and seek
refugee. I worked at a refugee camp in the Netherlands during the mid-nineties
and what was called the new wave of refugees and the West could hardly cope with
it.
But the ones who could hardly cope were the single women aan hun lot overgelaten
door hun man and now, with her children, in the hands of human traffickers who
promised them safe journeys when payed enough cash speaks for itself.
---------------------------
but...
The Guardian
1 Sept 2021
Kim Willsher in Paris
<<Afghanistan: fewer than 100 out of 700 female journalists still working.
Women forced out of jobs despite Taliban promises to allow them to keep working,
survey finds.
Female journalists in Afghanistan are being forced out of jobs and told to stay
at home despite Taliban promises to allow them to keep working and to respect
press freedom, according to a report.
Reporters Sans Frontières (RSF) says it believes fewer than 100 of Kabul’s 700
female journalists are still working and only a handful are continuing to work
from home in two other Afghan provinces. Others have been attacked and harassed.
By shutting down female voices in the media, the Taliban are in the process of
silencing all the country’s women, it says.
Since the Taliban took over the country on 15 August, a survey by RSF and its
partner organisation, the Centre for the Protection of Afghan Women Journalists
(CPAWJ), found most female staff in media organisations, including journalists,
have stopped working.
Kabul’s 108 media organisations employed 4,940 staff in 2020 including 1,080
females, 700 of them journalists. RSF reported that of the 510 women who used to
work for eight of the biggest private companies, only 76 – including 39
journalists – are still at work. The situation is similar in the provinces,
where almost all privately owned media outlets stopped operating as the Taliban
advanced.
<A handful of these women journalists are still more or less managing to work
from home, but there is no comparison with 2020 when a survey by RSF and the
CPAWJ established that more than 1,700 women were working for media outlets in
three provinces (Kabul, Herat and Balkh) in the east, west and north of the
country,> it reported.
<Taliban respect for the fundamental right of women, including women
journalists, to work and to practise their profession is a key issue,> the RSF
secretary general, Christophe Deloire, said.
<Women journalists must be able to resume working without being harassed as soon
as possible, because it is their most basic right, because it is essential for
their livelihood, and also because their absence from the media landscape would
have the effect of silencing all Afghan women. We urge the Taliban leadership to
provide immediate guarantees for the freedom and safety of women journalists.>
Days after entering the Afghan capital, Taliban forces recently barred Khadija
Amin and Shabnam Dawran, presenters with the public broadcaster Radio Television
Afghanistan, from working at the station’s offices. Amin was replaced by a male
Taliban official.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/01/afghanistan-only-handful-of-female-journalists-still-working
General note by Gino d'Artali: Apart from referring to and quoting from Al
Jazeera (Arabian based), The Guardian (UK), Women's Media Centre (US) I from
here on will also do so from Rukhshana Media (Afghanistan and women only
journalists).
Al Jazeera
15 Sept 2021
<<A month after Kabul’s fall, Taliban stares at humanitarian crisis.
Daunting problems for the group as it seeks to convert its lightning military
victory into a durable peacetime government.
A month after seizing Kabul, the Taliban is facing daunting problems as it seeks
to convert its lightning military victory into a durable peacetime
government. After four decades of war and the deaths of tens of thousands of
people, security has largely improved but Afghanistan’s economy is in
ruins despite hundreds of billions of dollars in development spending over the
past 20 years.
Drought and famine are driving thousands from the country to the cities, and the
World Food Programme fears its food supplies could start running
out by the end of the month, pushing the 14 million food-insecure Afghans to the
brink of starvation.
While much attention in the West has focused on whether the new Taliban
government will keep its promises to protect women’s rights and to reject groups
like al-Qaeda, for many Afghans the main priority is simple survival.
<Every Afghan, kids, they are hungry, they don’t have a single bag of flour or
cooking oil,> said Kabul resident Abdullah.
‘Food emergency’
On Tuesday, Rein Paulsen, director of the Food and Agriculture Organization’s
Office of Emergencies and Resilience, told reporters at the UN
headquarters in a video briefing from Kabul that four million Afghans are facing
<a food emergency>.
Paulsen said 70 percent of Afghans live in rural areas and there is a severe
drought affecting 7.3 million Afghans in 25 of the country’s 34 provinces.
These vulnerable rural communities have also been hit by the pandemic, he said.
Paulsen said the winter wheat planting season – the most important in
Afghanistan – is threatened by “challenges of the cash and banking system” as
well as challenges to markets and agricultural items.
<More than half of Afghans’ daily calorific intake comes from wheat,> he said.
If agriculture collapses further, Paulson warned, it will drive up malnutrition,
increase displacement and worsen the humanitarian situation.
Long lines still form outside banks, where weekly withdrawal limits of about
20,000 afghanis ($200) have been imposed to protect the country’s
dwindling reserves. Impromptu markets where people are selling their possessions
have sprung up across Kabul, although buyers are in short supply.
International donors have pledged more than $1bn to prevent what UN
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned could be <the collapse of an entire
country>.
Even with billions of dollars in foreign aid, Afghanistan’s economy had been
struggling, with growth failing to keep pace with the steady increase in
population. Jobs are scarce and many government workers have been unpaid since
at least July.
‘Every day, things get worse’
While most people appear to have welcomed the end of fighting, any relief has
been tempered by the near-shutdown of the economy.
<Security is quite good at the moment but we aren’t earning anything,> said a
butcher from the Bibi Mahro area of Kabul, who declined to give his
name.
<Every day, things get worse for us, more bitter. It’s a really bad situation.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/15/a-month-after-kabuls-fall-taliban-stares-at-humanitarian-crisis
Al Jazeera
<<From: The Stream
Is Afghanistan’s healthcare system about to crumble?
On Wednesday, September 15 at 19:30GMT:
Afghanistan’s healthcare system is on the verge of collapse if the international
community doesn’t step in, according to the World Health
Organization. The United Nations last week made an urgent appeal for almost
$200m in emergency funding from donor countries. Last month, as a
response to the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul, the World Bank froze tens of
millions of dollars in aid earmarked for Afghanistan. Money that hospitals and
clinics depended on. According to the country’s acting health minister, Dr Wahid
Majrooh, 90 percent of medical facilities across the country face closure
because of a lack of money.
<Patients don’t have food. The facilities don’t have fuel – don’t have oxygen,>
Majrooh said in an interview with Insider.
The Taliban on Tuesday thanked the nations that have so far donated funds.>>
Read more and watch a video here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/the-stream/2021/9/15/is-afghanistans-healthcare-system-about-to-crumble
Al Jazeera
15 Sept 2021
<<Afghanistan women’s football team flees to Pakistan.
Girls who played for under-14, under-16 and under-18 teams arrive in Lahore in
the wake of Taliban’s takeover.
Members of Afghanistan’s national women’s football team have fled across the
border into Pakistan, a month after the Taliban swept back into power, officials
say. According to Pakistan’s Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry, the players
entered Pakistan through the northwestern Torkham border crossing holding valid
travel documents.
<We welcome Afghanistan Women football team they arrived at Torkham Border from
Afghanistan. The players were in possession of valid
Afghanistan Passport, Pakistan visa and were received by Nouman Nadeem of PFF
(Pakistan Football Federation),> Chaudhry tweeted on Wednesday, providing no
further details.
It was unclear how many Afghan female players and their family members were
allowed to enter Pakistan.
However, Pakistan’s The Dawn newspaper on Wednesday reported the Afghan female
footballers were issued emergency humanitarian visas following the Taliban
takeover of Kabul.
Afghanistan’s new rulers, who banned women from playing all sport during their
first rule in the 1990s, have indicated that women and girls will face
restrictions in playing sport. The group of junior players and their coaches and
families had tried to escape the country last month but a devastating bomb
attack at Kabul airport left them stranded, someone close to the team told AFP
news agency.
<I received a request for their rescue from another England-based NGO, so I
wrote to Prime Minister Imran Khan who issued clearance for them to
land in Pakistan,> said Sardar Naveed Haider, an ambassador of global
development NGO Football for Peace, based in London.
In total, more than 75 people crossed the northern border on Tuesday, before
travelling south to the city of Lahore where they were greeted with
flower garlands.
<They would be travelling and staying in Lahore till they proceed further,> said
PFF vice president Amir Dogar.
The girls who played for the under-14, under-16 and under-18 teams crossed the
land border dressed in burqas, Haider said, before they later changed into
headscarves.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/15/afghanistan-women-football-team-pakistan-taliban-sports
Rakhshana Media
15 Sept 2021
<<Three Afghan women protesters end their hunger strike in Britain after six
days.
Three Afghan women protesters end their hunger strike in Britain after six days
Three Afghan women migrants who went on a hunger strike in front of the British
Parliament building over the situation in Afghanistan ended their
strike after six days.
The women told Rakhshaneh in an interview that they went on strike on September
9 after the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan to protest the current
situation in Afghanistan, the Taliban's observance of women's rights, and the
cessation of hostilities in Panjshir. They ate.
The women ended their hunger strike today (Wednesday, September 15). They place
more emphasis on ensuring women's rights in Afghanistan and preserving the
achievements of the last twenty years.>>
Read more here:
https://rukhshana.com/three-afghan-women-protesters-have-ended-their-hunger-strike
Al Jazeera
14 Sept 2021
<<Afghan child, evacuated alone, arrives in Canada: Report
UNICEF estimates 300 unaccompanied minors were evacuated from Afghanistan last
month.Afghan child, evacuated alone, arrives in Canada: Report
A three-year-old Afghan boy has made it to Toronto, where his father lives,
after leaving Kabul alone more than two weeks ago, Canadian news outlet
The Globe and Mail reported. The boy, whom The Globe identified with the
pseudonym Ali for safety concerns for his family in Afghanistan, arrived Canada
on Monday after a 14-hour flight from Qatar.
He had survived the suicide blast near the airport that killed 175 people last
month but became separated from his mother and four siblings who
remain in Afghanistan.
The child spent two weeks in an orphanage in Qatar before travelling to Canada,
accompanied by an official from the UN’s International Organization for
Migration (IOM), according to the report.
<I have no sleep for two weeks,> the boy’s father, who has been living in
Toronto for two years, told The Globe at the airport.
Canada, which was part of the US-led coalition that invaded Afghanistan in 2001,
has pledged to resettle 20,000 vulnerable Afghans this year.
<Afghans have put their lives at great risk to support Canada in helping Afghans
achieve significant democratic, human rights, education, health and
security gains over the past 20 years,> Marc Garneau, Canada’s foreign minister,
said in a statement last month. <We owe them a debt of gratitude and we will
continue our efforts to bring them to safety.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/14/afghan-child-evacuated-alone-arrives-in-canada-report
Al Jazeera
14 Sept 2021
<<Taliban broke promises on rights: Outgoing Afghan envoy to UN.
Nasir Ahmad Andisha says ‘women’s rights are disappearing from the landscape’
and accuses the group of ‘widespread atrocities’.
The Taliban has already broken its promises to safeguard women and protect human
rights, and the international community must hold it to account, says the
outgoing government’s ambassador to the United Nations.
<The Taliban have vowed to respect women’s rights but women’s rights are
disappearing from the landscape,> Nasir Ahmad Andisha, who remains accredited at
UN bodies despite the collapse of the government he represents, told the Human
Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday.
He accused the Taliban of <widespread atrocities> in the Panjshir Valley, the
last part of the country to hold out against the group, and said it was
conducting targeted killings and extrajudicial executions, including of young
boys.
The Taliban’s appointment of a new interim government <undermines Afghanistan’s
national unity political and social diversity>, he said.
The cabinet is made up entirely of men and overwhelmingly members of the Pashtun
ethnic group that forms the Taliban’s main base of support but accounts for less
than half of Afghanistan’s population.
<At this crucial moment the world cannot remain silent,> he said. <The people of
Afghanistan need action from the international community more than ever.>
The Taliban has denied carrying out abuses in Panjshir. It says it is supporting
women’s rights within a Muslim context, and that the new interim government will
consult the population on an inclusive future permanent system.
Andisha called for the Council to create a fact-finding mission to monitor
Taliban actions – an initiative backed by Western countries but which diplomats
say is opposed by some Asian states.
On Monday, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet rebuked the
Taliban for contradicting public promises on rights, including by ordering women
to stay at home, blocking teenage girls from school and holding searches for
former foes
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/14/taliban-broke-promises-on-rights-outgoing-afghan-envoy-to-un
Al Jazeera
14 Sept 2021
Ali M Latifi
<<Afghanistan’s Muttaqi urges countries to engage with new gov’t Acting Foreign
Minister Amir Muttaqi urges international community to resume aid as Afghanistan
faces a looming economic crisis.
Kabul, Afghanistan – Afghanistan’s acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi has
criticised the United States for its actions towards the new Taliban government
and for severing economic assistance after the group seized power last month.
In his first address to the media since the Taliban announced its new caretaker
government last week, Muttaqi said on Tuesday that the group would not allow
<any country> to impose sanctions or embargoes on Afghanistan, including the US.
<[We] helped the US until the evacuation of their last person, but
unfortunately, the US, instead of thanking us, froze our assets,> he said.
Since the Taliban took control of the Afghan capital, Kabul on August 15 as
former President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, the US Federal Reserve, the
International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have cut off Afghanistan’s access
to funds, resulting in a widespread liquidity crunch in the cash-dependent
economy. Muttaqi thanked the international community for pledging more than $1bn
of aid for Afghanistan at a UN donor conference on Monday.
<We welcome the pledge of emergency aid funding committed to Afghanistan during
yesterday’s meeting hosted by the UN in Geneva,> he said.
Calls to engage with Taliban
No government has yet agreed to formally recognise the Taliban-led
administration in Kabul, which could further imperil the Afghan economy, which
has been highly dependent on foreign aid for the last 20 years. According to the
World Bank, foreign aid makes up some 40 percent of Afghanistan’s gross domestic
product.
Muttaqi said the government was willing to work with any country, including the
US, but said it will not be “dictated to” by any state. Last week, French
Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said France <refuses to recognise or have
any type of relationship> with a Taliban-led government in Afghanistan.
Guterres remarked at the donor conference that it would be <impossible> to
provide humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan without engaging with the
Taliban. <I do believe it is very important to engage with the Taliban at the
present moment for all aspects that concern the international community,> he
said.
He told ministers that believed aid could be used as leverage with the Taliban
to achieve improvements on human rights, amid fears of a return to the brutal
rule that characterised the Taliban’s first stint in power from 1996 to 2001.
The European Union’s foreign policy chief Josep Borrell on Tuesday said the EU
has <no other option but to engage with the Taliban>.
Muttaqi urged countries around the world to open formal relations with the
Taliban-led government, citing an end to war in the country.
<Security is being maintained across the country,> he said, and stressed that
Afghanistan was open for foreign investment.
Muttaqi also said the government would not allow Afghanistan to be used as a
base for armed groups to launch attacks on other countries. >>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/14/afghanistans-amir-khan-muttaqi-addresses-the-media
Al Jazeera
14 Sept 2021
Ali M Latifi
<<‘Why are you out?’: Afghan women journalists recall Taliban sweep.
Female journalists who fled the country tell Al Jazeera they were left with no
choice amid fears of Taliban persecution.
– In the days leading up to the Taliban takeover of Kabul on August 15, Sama
(not her real name), a 27-year-old female journalist, says she tried to stay
positive, hoping things will be different this time and that the Taliban might
have changed its ways since the 1990s.
<I have interviewed them. I have interacted with them,> she said of her travels
across the nation’s provinces, during which she interviewed many Taliban
members. Comforted by the group’s fighters treating her <well> during those
reporting trips, Sama decided to make a film on life in Taliban-controlled
Kabul.
At first, she says, there was <no problem>, that armed Taliban fighters greeted
her by calling her <Mor Jana> (mother dear in Pashto). Within days, however, the
tide turned. She started receiving <strange> emails and phone calls, telling her
to stay inside.
‘Go home, why are you even out?’
But Sama decided to continue filming and was soon faced with a harsh reality. In
a span of days, she says the demeanour of Taliban fighters changed.
<Go home, why are you even out?> she was told.
Worse, her driver, who would wait for her and her crew in a parked car, was
beaten by the Taliban. She says he likely came under suspicion for three
reasons. <He was in a car full of camera equipment, he was wearing jeans and he
was a Hazara,> she said.
During its five-year rule in the 1990s, the Taliban banned all recordings,
forced men to dress in traditional clothes, and was accused of massacring the
Hazara minority.
Sama was grief-stricken that her work put her driver, a longtime friend, in such
a position. It was on that day that she decided it was time to leave.
<If I can’t do my job, then I am nothing, she said.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/14/afghanistan-women-journalists-taliban-media-reporters
Al Jazeera
13 Sept 2021
Ali M Latifi
<<Afghans sell possessions amid cash crunch, looming crisis.
The Taliban takeover, and the resulting cut in international funds, has
exacerbated an already dire economic situation.
Kabul, Afghanistan – Shukrullah brought four carpets to sell in Kabul’s Chaman-e
Hozori neighbourhood. The area is full of refrigerators, cushions, fans,
pillows, blankets, silverware, curtains, beds, mattresses, cookware and shelves
that hundreds of others carried to sell.
The goods line the blocks surrounding the once grassy field that has turned to
dirt and dust, the result of decades of inattention and drought. Each item
amounts to a part of a life families built over the last 20 years in the Afghan
capital. Now, they are all being sold at a pittance to feed those very
households. <We bought these carpets for 48,000 Afghanis [$556], but now I can’t
get more than 5,000 Afghanis [$58] for all of them,> Shukrullah says, as people
rummage through the goods on display.
Afghans have faced a cash crisis since the Taliban took control of the capital
on August 15. The World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the US
central bank cut off Afghanistan’s access to international funds in recent
weeks. Banks across Afghanistan were shuttered and many automated teller
machines were not dispensing cash.
While many banks have since reopened, a weekly withdrawal limit of 20,000
Afghanis ($232) was imposed. Hundreds of men and women have spent their days
queueing outside the nation’s banks, waiting for the chance to withdraw funds.
For families such as Shukrullah’s though, waiting outside overcrowded financial
institutions is not an option.
<I need to make enough to at least buy some flour, rice and oil,> he says of the
33 people in his family who have all moved into one house over the last year.
Even before former President Ashraf Ghani fled the country and the Taliban took
control, Afghanistan was already facing a slowing economy that was exacerbated
by the global COVID-19 pandemic and a protracted drought that has further
devastated an economy highly reliant on agriculture.
In a report released last week, the United Nations warned more than 97 percent
of the population could sink below the poverty line by mid-2022.
On Monday, UN chief Antonio Guterres convened a high-level humanitarian aid
conference on Afghanistan in Geneva in an effort to raise $600m, about one-third
of which will go towards food aid.
The global body has previously expressed deep concern about the economic crisis
and the threat of <a total breakdown> in Afghanistan.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/13/afghans-sell-possessions-amid-cash-crunch-pending-economic-crisis
Al Jazeera
13 Sept 2021
<<International donors pledge $1bn in aid for Afghanistan.
UN chief Antonio Guterres says money is needed for critical food and livelihood
assistance amid dwindling supplies in Afghanistan.
Donors have pledged more than a billion dollars to help Afghanistan, where
poverty and hunger have spiralled since the Taliban took power, and foreign aid
has dried up, raising the spectre of a mass exodus. UN Secretary-General Antonio
Guterres said it was impossible to say how much of the money had been promised
in response to an emergency UN appeal for $606 million to meet the most pressing
needs of a country in crisis.
<It is impossible to provide humanitarian assistance inside Afghanistan without
engaging with the de facto authorities,> Guterres told journalists on the
sidelines of a donor conference in Geneva, adding it was <very important to
engage with the Taliban at the present moment>. Al Jazeera’s James Bay reported
from Geneva said that while UN chief was <very pleased> with the response of the
international community, he said the prospect of an economic collapse was a
<serious possibility>.
<The financial systems at the moment is extremely limited. Which means that a
number of basic economic functions cannot be delivered,> he said responding to a
question from Al Jazeera at a press conference.
After decades of war, suffering and insecurity, Afghans are facing <perhaps
their most perilous hour>, Guterres said earlier on Monday in his opening
remarks to the donor conference, adding that <the people of Afghanistan need a
lifeline.
<Let us be clear: This conference is not simply about what we will give to the
people of Afghanistan. It is about what we owe.>
He said food supplies could run out by the end of the month. The Taliban
previously ruled Afghanistan between 1996-2001, barring women from work and
teenage girls from school, and were toppled in an invasion led by the United
States, which accused them of sheltering al-Qaeda members behind the September
11 attacks. The Taliban swept back to power last month in a lightning advance as
the last US-led NATO troops pulled out and the forces of the Western-backed
government melted away. With aid flows abruptly ending, German Foreign Minister
Heiko Maas said international donors had a <moral obligation> to continue
helping Afghans after their 20-year engagement.
Neighbours China and Pakistan have already offered help. Beijing announced last
week that it would send $31m worth of food and health supplies to Afghanistan.
Pakistan sent supplies such as cooking oil and medicine to authorities in Kabul,
and called for the unfreezing of Afghanistan’s assets.
<Past mistakes must not be repeated. The Afghan people must not be abandoned,>
said Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi, whose country would most
likely bear the brunt of any exodus of refugees.
<Sustained engagement with Afghanistan in meeting its humanitarian needs is
essential.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/13/u-n-seeks-600-million-in-afghanistans-most-perilous-hourhttps://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/13/u-n-seeks-600-million-in-afghanistans-most-perilous-hour
Gino d'Artali
Investigative indepth journalist
13 Sept 2021
Opinion.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres may sound very optimistic getting the
millions together and he even speaks of a <moral engagement needed but...I think
many Western and some Arabic countries may feel as if been pushed in a split
position also because the so-called a sort of
would be government not even put together by the taliban has not been recognised
internationally. I personaly am kind of donating alreading by publishing the
Afghanistan's Women Resistence (LINK) and spending many many unpaid hours to do
so. A work from the bottom of my heart and to support the women who might again
have to face and undergo a sharia dictatorship. I really hope not hence my
supporting work for the women.
The Guardian
12 Sept 2021
Emma Graham-Harrison in Kandahar
<<Afghanistan’s shrinking horizons: ‘Women feel everything is finished’
The Taliban claim to have changed, but the crackdown has begun for women across
the country.
In two months, Parwana estimates she has crossed the threshold of her home
perhaps four times. She used to leave early in the morning, for work that
supported her entire family, and then go on to an evening degree course. After
the Taliban took over Kandahar, her manager told her not to come to work and her
university hasn’t yet sorted out how to put on the gender-divided classes they
demanded.
Many people have welcomed the calm that settled over the city after the war
abruptly ended, but for Parwana, as a single young woman, streets patrolled by
Taliban soldiers are filled with menace. <Now I’m scared to go out. I wasn’t
before.>
<I thought I was somebody, I could do something for my family and help others.
Now I can’t even support myself,> she said. <Women here feel like everything is
finished for them.>
The Taliban leadership, eager for international recognition and funds, has for
years been courting the world with promises that the group has fundamentally
shifted its positions on women’s rights.
When their fighters seized Kabul, spokesman Zabihullah Mujiahid pledged within
days that women would have rights to education and work, within an Islamic
framework the group has yet to define.
As the weeks have passed, with no further clarification, the evidence from the
ground in Afghanistan suggests they envisage a form of gender apartheid. Women
may be offered some rights, but will be expected to study and work in a sphere
so totally detached from that of men running the country, the economy and all
major sectors that their lives will still be severely curtailed. Niamatullah
Hassan, the new Taliban mayor of Kandahar, says he has two women back at work in
his administration, out of a 1,200-strong municipal team. He will allow more
women employees, once they can be isolated from men and the central government
approves.
<I am willing to increase the number of women workers, we are planning to
prepare a separate workplace for them, a safe environment for them,> he said.
Health and education workers are mostly still at their offices, though some in
Kandahar have been ordered to wear burqas, but all other women have been ordered
to stay home indefinitely for “security” reasons. The Observer has pressed
senior officials around the country in interviews for a date when women will be
allowed back to work nationwide. Most defer the question or offer a vague
promise of <soon>. Afghan women are sceptical; in the 1990s the group used the
same excuse to ban them from work for the five years they held power.
In education too, there are many promises from the leadership, but women’s
experience is of restrictions. Although some private universities have opened,
with students strictly segregated by gender, a shortage of female teachers, or
female students, will close off many subjects to women.
In Kandahar, Zainab is one of two girls on a science degree course and her
university has already said it’s not economical to teach them separately from
men. She’s one semester away from finishing, but doesn’t know if she will ever
get the degree. <I am so sad, so disappointed.>
Gulalai is glad to be studying medicine, because the Taliban are allowing female
doctors to work, but she is bleak about her degree quality. <There aren’t many
women students, so we are not going to get expert teachers, we will get the
young, inexperienced ones.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/12/afghanistans-shrinking-horizons-women-feel-everything-is-finished
Al Jazeera
12 Sept 2021
By Nadima
<<Human Rights.
‘Men don’t protect us, they won’t respect us’: Afghan diaries
How one woman is determined to stay despite the uncertain future that women like
her face in the country.
Nadima’s family fled Afghanistan when she was a baby. As an adult, she returned.
Now despite fears and uncertainty, the 38 year old woman is refusing to leave
again. In this article, she reflects on the changes she has witnessed in her
country since the Taliban took over on August 15. She wonders what the future
holds for women in Afghanistan and questions why most men are not standing with
them to speak up for their rights.
All my cousins who I had not seen in 10 years were visiting Kabul over the last
three days, from Mazar, from Herat. We all had a good time together.
The house was full of girls, we danced, we all decided to play dress up, they
all wore my turbans, we all wore traditional clothes. We sang together, we
cooked, we shared stories, we talked about everything that is happening.
One of my cousins thought back to how hard she worked to be a teacher; now she
cannot imagine sitting at home and not teaching. She fought for her education,
she protested against her family, while the only person who supported her going
to India to get her Masters degree was her husband. Even her brother, my cousin,
was not for it.
So she cannot imagine staying at home. She is afraid that what happened to her
mother, who got hit in the knees by the Taliban in 1999, 2000, might become her
story as well. She does not want to be beaten like her mother was for insisting
on running her girls school in Heart after Taliban closed it.
My cousin tells me she is very strong and independent and that she will always
advocate for education. But she does not feel that she wants to do it from here,
so she is going to Turkey.
<These people don’t know our value, our worth, what we have to offer as women so
I’ll go to a country where I’m welcomed and appreciated,> she told me. <All the
hard work I put into myself to get here, so I can teach another little girl, now
I will do that for a country that will accept me and will want their women to be
educated,> she said. It made me very sad, you know, because she is valuable to
this country, to the young girls here.
She understands the culture, the language, the education system, because she has
been through this. She is a mathematics genius and was going to do her PhD. But
now somebody else will enjoy the fruit of her hard work, the Turkish students.
Now in another country, another group of people are going to be learning from
her when she should be teaching children in Afghanistan.
We have lost so many women like her in this country. I am very, very sad.
I will be OK but everybody has left and I’m sitting all alone in the house and I
am thinking: what am I going to do?
Because of the decision I made to stay, I cannot even tell anyone how I feel.
When there were guns being fired in the air the other day, I called one of my
cousins, who also lives in Kabul and cannot leave. I asked her: <Are you OK?>
Celebratory gunfire seems to be the new norm, we heard it the day the US troops
withdrawal was completed, then again when Mullah Baradar, the deputy leader in
the new Afghan government, arrived in Kabul a few days ago. <I will be ok but
what the hell are you doing here?> she asked.
<I can’t leave,> I said.
<No, you have no excuse to call me, no reason to call me. You chose to be here –
now live with it,> she replied. So I am not even allowed to express how I feel.
Those who are choosing to stay here, to raise their voices or try to be part of
this and at least observe and understand for themselves, are not even given the
chance. People have started to become apathetic because they are just trying to
survive. They are worried about the economy, their education, their health. What
saddens me is that yes, there is a shift happening, there is a government
change, there is the history with the Taliban of the past, people have trauma.
But what does this have to do with those women who are continuing their
education? What does this have to do with those orphanages that need funding,
for the children who are the victims of the last 20 years of war? What about
those women who are in hospital about to give birth at any minute? What about
the nurses, the doctors, who are going to take care of them?>>
Read the whole article here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/9/12/men-dont-protect-us-they-wont-respect-us-afghan-diaries
or listen to the story by clicking on the start button to listen to it
Al Jazeera
12 Sept 2021
<<Taliban says women can study in gender-segregated universities.
However, women will be required to wear head coverings and the curriculum is
under review, Afghanistan’s new rulers say.
Women in Afghanistan can continue to study in universities, including at the
postgraduate level, but classrooms will be gender-segregated and head coverings
will be compulsory. Higher Education Minister Abdul Baqi Haqqani laid out the
new policies at a news conference on Sunday, a day after the Taliban raised
their flag over the presidential palace, signalling the start of work of the
new, all-male government announced last week.
The Taliban’s rise has stoked fears the group would turn back to the draconian
rule that defined its first stint in power in Afghanistan 20 years ago. That
included the denial of education for girls and women, as well as their exclusion
from public life.
<We will start building on what exists today,> Haqqani said, maintaining the
Taliban’s position that its attitudes, particularly towards women, have shifted
in the past 20 years. The most recent statement comes as the group has sought
international legitimacy following its lightning-fast offensive across the
country as the United States prepared to withdraw troops by an August 31
deadline. The Taliban took Kabul on August 15. Despite the Taliban’s posturing,
women have been banned from sports and the Taliban has used violence in recent
days against female protesters demanding equal rights.
‘Will not allow co-education’
On Sunday, Haqqani said female university students will face restrictions that
include a compulsory dress code. He said hijabs will be mandatory but did not
specify if this meant compulsory headscarves or also compulsory face coverings.
Gender segregation will also be enforced, he said. <We will not allow boys and
girls to study together,> he said. <We will not allow co-education.>
He said female students would be taught by women wherever possible. <Thanks to
God we have a high number of women teachers. We will not face any problems in
this. All efforts will be made to find and provide women teachers for female
students,> he said.
Haqqani said the subjects being taught would also be reviewed.
While he did not elaborate, he said he wanted graduates of Afghanistan’s
universities to be competitive with university graduates in the region and the
rest of the world.
The Taliban, which subscribes to a strict and distinct interpretation of Islam,
banned music and art during its previous time in power.
This time around, television has remained and news channels still show women
presenters, but the Taliban messaging has been erratic.
In an interview on Afghanistan’s popular TOLO News, Taliban spokesman Syed
Zekrullah Hashmi said women should give birth and raise children, and while the
Taliban has not ruled out eventual participation of women in government, the
spokesman said, <It’s not necessary that women be in the cabinet.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/12/taliban-say-women-can-study-in-gender-segregated-universities
Rukhshana Media
Published some date in Sept 2021
Note from Gino d'Artali: Rukhshana Media seems to have problems with giving
their articles but I'd say, not to worry, as long they're read and I'm more than
happy I can support Rukhshana Media as good as I can.
<<Military women in Taliban terror; We want to raise our voices before we are
killed!
Note: The English version of this report has been published with a slight
difference in its edition by the British newspaper and The Guardian .
By Zahra Joya and Zahra Nader
Negar, a woman who worked as a policeman in Ghor prison for 15 years, told a
relative she would not run away, "I did nothing, why would anyone want to kill
me?"
The family member, who did not want to be named in the report for security
reasons, said that at midnight on Saturday (September 4), three gunmen who
identified themselves as Mojahedin Taliban attacked Negar's house. Negar's
husband and four sons were handcuffed and imprisoned in a room. Negar was then
beaten, and he was shot several times in the back of the head in front of his
children>>.
Read more here:
https://rukhshana.com/we-want-to-raise-our-voices-before-we-are-killed
Al Jazeera
11 Sept 2021
<<From: Inside Story
Can the Taliban be trusted with Afghanistan aid?
UN warns of ‘economic meltdown’ without urgent cash and help for Afghanistan.
Much of the world is facing a stark choice with Afghanistan: accept the Taliban
as the country’s new leaders, or continue shutting them out.
The group has been barred from accessing the Afghan central bank’s foreign
assets worth $10bn.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/inside-story/2021/9/11/can-the-taliban-be-trusted-with-afghanistan-aid
Rukhshana Media
11 Sept 2021
<<
August 15, 1400 was an unusual day in Kabul. On the way to the office, I would
occasionally see a group of men walking briskly along the roads. Something
collapsed in my heart and my heart rate was slowly rising. The panic of the
people signaled an unfortunate event that might be falling that day. It seems
that the city of pregnancy is an unpleasant development, a new event, a
repetition of the black list of history.
When I reached the back of the bank, I came across the longest line of citizens.
It is as if the bank is running away and people are running after money. But the
presence of women was pale; very pale; Instead, the ranks of men were increasing
every moment. People were rushing their money out of the banks. I did not
imagine that all this happened at once. I could not believe that the thoughts of
the people of this city would change so soon and they would be affected. When I
protested to get a turn at the bank, why is it not the turn of women? A man
shamelessly returned and said to me, <You have no place left. You want the color
of all of you to be lost. We came here in the morning to pray, are you just
waking up and talking about women's rights? >. I felt a deep pain in my heart.
It was as if my being was paralyzed by the way he spoke; But I protested against
it. I said, <Peace of mind, your life would not be better without our presence,>
but is that really so? How effective can a woman's presence be? These are
questions that time will tell. Absolute silence reigned everywhere when I went
to the office from the bank. All my colleagues were leaving their offices.
Everyone was terrified, worried, and in a hurry to find shelter. I had to leave
the office. A flood of city residents were fleeing to their homes. The most
anxious women passed each other like a hurricane. No means of transportation
were found, and women were terrorized and harassed by a flood of men. I saw a
girl on the side of the road crying out loud.
Read more here:
https://rukhshana.com/story-of-the-fall-what-happened-to-me
Al Jazeera
<<From: The Stream
Bonus Edition: Somalia hunger, Afghanistan’s women, life in Gaza
On Friday, September 10 at 19:30 GMT:
In this bonus edition of The Stream, we go behind the scenes to talk about the
growing hunger crisis in Somalia, to hear personal stories from Gaza and we have
a special interview with the CEO of Women for Women International from our
Instagram Live series.>>
Click here to watch the video:
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/the-stream/2021/9/10/bonus-edition-somalia-hunger-afghanistans-women-life-in-gaza
Al Jazeera
10 Sept 2021
<<UN condemns Taliban violence against peaceful protesters.
The UN calls on the Taliban to immediately cease the use of force and the
arbitrary detention of peaceful protesters.
The United Nations has condemned the Taliban’s increasingly violent response
against peaceful demonstrators in Afghanistan, as members of the armed group
used live ammunitions, batons and whips, resulting in the killing of at least
four protesters.
<We call on the Taliban to immediately cease the use of force towards, and the
arbitrary detention of those exercising their right to peaceful assembly and the
journalists covering the protests,> Ravina Shamdasani, UN rights spokeswoman,
told a briefing in Geneva on Friday, adding that reports show house-to-house
searches for those who participated in the protests.
Shamdasani also said journalists have faced intimidation. <One journalist was
reported to have been told, as he was being kicked in the head that you are
lucky you have not been beheaded,> she said. A growing number of demonstrations
have emerged across the country since the Taliban seized power on August 15 in a
lightning-fast offensive that removed the Western-backed government of former
President Ashraf Ghani as US troops withdrew from the country after nearly 20
years of war.
The group – which executed people in stadiums and chopped off the hands of
thieves in their previous stint of power from 1996 to 2001 – has repeatedly
pledged a more moderate brand of rule. But they have shown clear signs that they
will not stand for any resistance against their rule.
On Tuesday and Wednesday, hundreds of protesters took to the street of the
capital Kabul chanting anti-Pakistan slogans and calling for “freedom” as many
Afghans fear that the new government will mark a swift U-turn on women’s rights
and freedom of the press.
The last lot of demonstrators came after the Taliban announced the composition
of an interim government dominated by members of the group’s old guard, without
any women.
Shamdasani referred to reports that the Taliban beat and detained protesters in
Kabul this week, including several women and up to 15 journalists.
Pictures posted by local newspaper Etilaatroz showed physical evidence of
floggings and beatings with cables that two of its journalists – Taqi Daryabi
and Nematullah Naqdi – were subject to after being arrested while covering a
women’s protest.
Daryabi’s lower back, upper legs, and face were covered with deep red lesions.
Naqdi’s left arm, upper back, upper legs, and face were also covered in red
welts. Two witnesses, who spoke to Al Jazeera on Thursday, said a male protester
also left one of the cells “barely” walking.
Following a demonstration of hundreds in Herat, two bodies were brought to the
city’s central hospital from the site of the protest, a doctor told the AFP news
agency on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
<They all have bullet wounds,> he reportedly said.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/10/un-condemns-talibans-violence-against-peaceful-protesters
Al Jazeera
10 Sept 2021
<<UN warns Afghanistan at risk of ‘total breakdown’
UN calls for release of frozen assets to avoid economic and social collapse
after UNDP said Afghanistan faces staggering poverty.
The United Nations has warned that Afghanistan is at risk of “total breakdown”
of the international community does not find a way to keep money flowing into
Afghanistan despite concerns over the Taliban government. The United Nations
Development Programme (UNDP) said in a report released on Thursday that about 97
percent of Afghanistan’s population may sink below the poverty line unless the
country’s political and economic crises are addressed. Nearly $10bn of
Afghanistan’s central bank assets are currently frozen overseas and considered
key leverage over the new administration.
But the UN special envoy on Afghanistan Deborah Lyons told the Security Council
on Thursday that a way needed to be found to get the money into the country <to
prevent a total breakdown of the economy and social order> noting that
Afghanistan was facing a storm of crises including a plunging currency, a sharp
rise in prices for food and fuel and a lack of cash at private banks. The
authorities also do not have the funds to pay salaries, she said.
<The economy must be allowed to breathe for a few more months, giving the
Taliban a chance to demonstrate flexibility and a genuine will to do things
differently this time, notably from a human rights, gender, and counterterrorism
perspective,> Lyons told the 15-member Council, saying safeguards could be
devised to ensure the funds were not misused.
Foreign donors led by the United States provided more than 75 percent of the
public expenditure for the Afghanistan government that crumbled as the US
withdrew its troops after 20 years in the country. President Joe Biden’s
administration has said it is open to donating humanitarian aid but says that
any direct economic lifeline, including unfreezing the central bank assets, will
be contingent on Taliban actions including allowing safe passage to people to
leave. The first civilian flight out of Kabul – carrying more than 100
passengers – landed in Qatar on Thursday
The International Monetary Fund has also blocked the Taliban from accessing some
$440m in new emergency reserves.
<The Taliban seeks international legitimacy and support. Our message is simple:
any legitimacy and support will have to be earned,> senior US diplomat Jeffrey
DeLaurentis told the Security Council.
Russia and China, which has offered millions in emergency aid to the country,
have both argued for the release of Afghanistan’s frozen assets.
<These assets belong to Afghanistan and should be used for Afghanistan, not as
leverage for threats or restraints,> China’s Deputy UN Ambassador Geng Shuang
said.
Afghanistan’s UN Ambassador Ghulam Isaczai, who was appointed by the US-backed
government that collapsed as the Taliban advanced, urged the Security Council to
<withhold any recognition of any government in Afghanistan unless it’s truly
inclusive and formed on the basis of free will of the people.>
‘Dire situation’
Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, reporting from the capital Kabul, said 18
million people rely on humanitarian aid on a daily basis in Afghanistan, from a
population of 38 million people.
<It’s a dire situation. There have been convoys coming across from Pakistan and
we know that some NGOs have been using airports in other cities, like
Mazar-e-Sharif, to try to get aid in,> he said. <We know there are ongoing
discussions within the UN on how to increase the amount of aid.
<But of course, there are some very real problems, like the political situation:
there are many Taliban officials in this interim government that are on a black
list, one of whom, the interim interior minister, is on terror watch list – so
the issue is how to deal with that on an international political level.>
Astrid Sletten from the Norwegian Refugee Council told Al Jazeera: <It’s not
just the conflict, it’s the perfect storm.>
<More than half a million people have already fled drought-affected areas and
they are at imminent risk of starvation and freezing to death for the upcoming
winter. She said that the Taliban has allowed her organisation to bring back
female staff to work.
<This is a disaster and the international community needs to step up and support
not only humanitarian action but also lift or ease the sanctions,> she said from
Kabul.
‘Credible allegations’
The Taliban announced what it said was an interim government on Tuesday, which
included no women and several ministers on UN sanctions lists.
Lyons said there were <credible allegations> that the Taliban has carried out
reprisal killings of security forces despite promises of amnesty.
She also voiced concern over what she said was the rising harassment of the UN’s
Afghan staff, although she said the Taliban had largely respected the world
organisation’s premises. Taliban leaders have said they will respect women’s
rights in accordance with Islamic law, without elaborating.
When the group was previously in power between 1996 and 2001, women were not
allowed to work and girls were banned from school. Women had to cover themselves
and a male relative had to accompany them when they left home. Lyons said the UN
was receiving increasing reports of women again being subjected to such curbs.
<They have limited girls’ access to education in some regions and dismantled the
Department of Women’s Affairs across Afghanistan,> she added.
he UN is planning a pledging conference on Monday for humanitarian assistance,
although without the Taliban government, which has not been recognised by any
country. The appeals for support come despite widespread concerns over an
interim government the Taliban named on Tuesday that includes no women and
several ministers on UN watchlists over terrorism allegations.
Malala Yousafzai, who as a 15-year-old, was shot in the head by Pakistan’s
branch of the Taliban because of her advocacy for girls’ education, told the
Security Council she was hearing growing cases of Afghan girls and female
teachers being told to stay home.
The Nobel laureate urged global powers to send a <clear and open message> to the
Taliban that any working relationship is contingent on girls’ education.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/10/un-warns-afghanistan-at-risk-of-total-breakdown
and 3 more related articles/links about:
Afghanistan on the brink of universal poverty: UN
Iran insists on ‘inclusive’ government in Afghanistan
First civilian flight from Kabul since US exit lands in Doha
and 2 articles cryfreedom published about Malala Yousafhai:
Rukhshana Media
9 Sept 2021
<<Fear of the Taliban; At least six female students at Seyyed al-Shuhada School
were weakened and taken to hospital.
Speaking to Rukhshaneh media, popular sources confirm that a number of female
students of the Sayyid al-Shuhada school in western Kabul were shocked and taken
to hospital after the Taliban entered the classroom and threatened them.
Relatives of one of the students said the Taliban had asked fifth-grade girls at
the school to wear a white cloth with the words <La ilaha illa Muhammad, the
Messenger of God> on their foreheads. Speaking to Rakhshaneh media, one person
said that the Taliban slapped a student who was the first grade in the class for
refusing to do so and pointed a gun at the students. At least six students were
shocked and taken to hospital following the Taliban's move, he said. Public
sources did not want to be identified due to security concerns. This event took
place on Wednesday (September 7). Sources say aerial shots were fired during the
girls' holiday, adding to the fear of female students.
According to popular sources, some of these students were hospitalized for
several hours and called their parents every time they woke up. The students
faced a shocking situation after a bloody attack on the students of this school
a few months ago .
The Taliban have not yet commented, but Zabihullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the
group, had previously told a news conference that no one, including Taliban
forces, had the right to shoot in the air and would be dealt with legally if
violated.>>
Al Jazeera
9 Sept 2021
By Ali M Latifi
<<Taliban accused of torturing journalists for covering protests.
Reports show the armed group being violent and intimidating journalists, despite
their free-press pledge.
Kabul, Afghanistan – Taliban fighters have been accused of beating and detaining
journalists for covering protests in the Afghan capital Kabul, raising questions
over the group’s promises on media freedom. Two reporters for the Etilaatroz
newspaper – Taqi Daryabi and Nematullah Naqdi – were detained by the Taliban
while covering a women’s protest in the west of Kabul on Wednesday morning.
Two other journalists from the newspaper – Aber Shaygan and Lutfali Sultani –
rushed to the police station along with the newspaper editor, Kadhim Karimi, to
inquire about the whereabouts of their colleagues.
But the moment they reached the police station, they say, Taliban fighters
pushed and slapped them and confiscated all their belongings, including mobile
phones. <Karimi barely finished his sentence, when one of the Taliban slapped
him and told him to get lost,> Shaygan told Al Jazeera, adding that as soon as
they introduced themselves as journalists, the Taliban treated them with
disdain.
Torture in holding cell
The three men were taken into a small holding cell with 15 people in it, two of
whom were reporters with Reuters and Turkey’s Anadolu Agency, Shaygan said. It
was while they were in holding that the three heard reports of the disturbing
abuse suffered by Daryabi, 22, and Naqdi, 28, who were being held in separate
rooms. Two other journalists from the newspaper – Aber Shaygan and Lutfali
Sultani – rushed to the police station along with the newspaper editor, Kadhim
Karimi, to inquire about the whereabouts of their colleagues. But the moment
they reached the police station, they say, Taliban fighters pushed and slapped
them and confiscated all their belongings, including mobile phones.
The three men were taken into a small holding cell with 15 people in it, two of
whom were reporters with Reuters and Turkey’s Anadolu Agency, Shaygan said.
It was while they were in holding that the three heard reports of the disturbing
abuse suffered by Daryabi, 22, and Naqdi, 28, who were being held in separate
rooms. <We could hear their screams and cries through the walls,> the cellmates
said of the piercing cries. <The cellmates had even heard the sounds of women
crying from pain.>
Pictures posted by the newspaper online filled in the rest of the story. They
showed clear physical evidence of the floggings and beatings with cables both
men were subject to. Daryabi’s lower back, upper legs, and face were covered
with deep red lesions. Naqdi’s left arm, upper back, upper legs, and face were
also covered in red welts. <They were beaten so bad, they couldn’t walk. They
were hit with guns, they were kicked, they were whipped with cables, they were
slapped,> Shaygan said. He said the violence was so brutal that Naqdi and
Daryabi had lost consciousness from the pain.
But it was not just journalists who seemed to meet this fate. Shaygan said a
male protester was escorted into their cell by Taliban guards, clearly looking
as if he too had been abused.
<He could barely walk, one of the other cellmates had to get up and help him
in,> said Shaygan.
Stern warning
Though all five men were released after several hours in detention, Shaygan said
they were issued a stern warning from a Taliban official before leaving: <What
these protesters were doing is illegal and by covering such things, you all
broke the law. We will let you go this time, but next time you won’t be let out
so easily.
At the time, protests were not outlawed but, within hours, the Taliban issued a
decree saying any protests, along with their slogans, must be approved 24 hours
prior by the Ministry of Justice.
Those claims of illegality by the official struck Shaygan and his colleagues as
going directly against statements the Taliban have made about freedom of the
press in their <Islamic Emirate>. >>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/9/talibans-violence-against-women-reporters-intensifies
Read also an article by The Guardian on the same topic here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/09/violent-attacks-on-afghan-journalists-by-taliban-prompt-growing-alarm
The Guardian
8 Sept 2021
Humanity United
Zahra Joya for Rukhshana Media
<<‘They came for my daughter’: Afghan single mothers face losing children under
Taliban.
Life for single mothers in Afghanistan has always been marred by stigma and
poverty. Now with the Taliban in control, what few protections they had have
disappeared.
The day after Mazar-i-Sharif, the provincial capital of Balkh province, fell to
the Taliban on 14 August, gunmen came for Raihana’s* six-year-old daughter.
Widowed when her husband was murdered by Taliban forces in 2020, Raihana had
been raising her child as a single mother. After her husband’s death she had
fought her in-laws for custody of her daughter and won, thanks to the rights she
had under Afghan civil law – which state that single women can keep their
children if they can provide for them financially. Now, with her city in Taliban
hands, Raihana was alone.
<The day after the fall of Mazar-i-Sharif, my brother in-law showed up at my
father’s house, where I lived, with Taliban fighters demanding to give them my
daughter,> Raihana told the Guardian. Raihana was lucky. She and her daughter
were not at home when the armed men arrived. As soon as she heard, she took her
child and fled Mazar-i-Sharif for Kabul.
<They wanted to take my daughter away from me,> she said. <We hid in flour sacks
in the back of a truck and when the driver found us we begged him to take us to
Kabul.>
Once in the Afghan capital, Raihana went from embassy to embassy seeking help.
Eventually her sister, who lives in the UK, was able to get them both on a
flight out of Afghanistan to safety. They are now in Manchester.
<I managed to leave Afghanistan after so much hardship. I’m so happy that my
daughter is with me,> Raihana says. <I thank the UK government.>
Life for single mothers in Afghanistan has always been marred by stigma, poverty
and marginalisation. Now with the Taliban in control, what few protections they
had have disappeared and their situation is increasingly desperate.
Yalda, a 28-year-old, single mother of three, is in hiding in Kabul as her
ex-husband hunts for her children.
<My ex-husband is a member of the Taliban now and is trying to take my children
away,> she said. <My father’s house is surrounded. They’re constantly harassing
them, looking for me and my children. He wants to use any opportunity he gets.>
Yalda* says she was terrorised by her husband for years. <My father arranged the
marriage when I was only 14 years old. I didn’t know anything about being
married – I was still a child myself,> she says.
Soon afterwards Yalda fell pregnant and she had two more children in the years
that followed. She also discovered that her husband was a member of the Taliban.
She says their marriage was one of violence and abuse.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2021/sep/08/they-came-for-my-daughter-afghan-single-mothers-face-losing-children-under-taliban
Rukhshana Media
8 Sept 2021
<<The story and perspective of a woman who took part in today's demonstration in
Badakhshan.
Hint: This is the story of one of the women who took part in today's
demonstration in Badakhshan province, which was sent to Rakhshaneh media . He
did not want to be identified due to security threats.
We, the women of Feyzabadi, had organized a rally on 7 September 2021 to stop
the war in Panjshir and our freedom and rights, we were gathering, it was 8:50
in the morning. There were about 15 of us, a little further away from us, a
number of men had also gathered. The gathering of men and women was in two
separate places.
At one point, Taliban forces began firing into the air. The women who had just
joined the protest were terrified. We all ran away. And we tried to gather all
the binoculars in one place. The Taliban were all amazed to see us. But we were
asked to end the protests and return to our homes. Three Taliban fighters tried
to get closer to our gathering and disperse us with airstrikes. We did not care
about them. We went to the road and chanted the slogans we had. Suddenly,
another group of Taliban forces blocked our way and tore up our slogans. They
were very violent and used vulgar words. More than four women were beaten to
death when our demonstrations caused chaos. A woman was captured, her phone
turned off, and she whipped herself. I was shocked by all this cruelty and
cruelty of this group. All protesters were forced to flee to local homes or fear
of being flogged by the Taliban. Back to the isolation and the corner of the
home prison.>>
Click here if you wish to read the article in Arabic:
https://rukhshana.com/story-of-a-woman-who-took-part-in-todays-demonstration-in-badakhshan
The Guardian
8 Sept 2021
Peter Beaumont
<<Afghan women to be banned from playing sport, Taliban say.
National cricket team included in prohibition, as interim government containing
no women starts work.
Afghan women, including the country’s women’s cricket team, will be banned from
playing sport under the new Taliban government, according to an official in the
hardline Islamist group.
In an interview with the Australian broadcaster SBS, the deputy head of the
Taliban’s cultural commission, Ahmadullah Wasiq, said women’s sport was
considered neither appropriate nor necessary. <I don’t think women will be
allowed to play cricket because it is not necessary that women should play
cricket,> Wasiq said. <In cricket, they might face a situation where their face
and body will not be covered. Islam does not allow women to be seen like this.
<It is the media era, and there will be photos and videos, and then people watch
it. Islam and the Islamic Emirate [Afghanistan] do not allow women to play
cricket or play the kind of sports where they get exposed.>
The US state department expressed concern that the new cabinet included only
Taliban, no women, and personalities with troubling track records, but said the
new administration would be judged by its actions. >>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/08/afghan-women-to-be-banned-from-playing-sport-taliban-say
Al Jazeera
8 Sept 2021
<<Afghans protest, fearing curbs on women’s rights, free speech.
The Taliban announced a new government on Tuesday amid protests from Afghans
over women’s rights and free speech.
The Taliban announced a new government on Tuesday amid protests from Afghans
over women’s rights and free speech. A growing number of protests have emerged
across the country over the past week, with many Afghans fearful of a repeat of
the Taliban’s previous reign between 1996 and 2001.
Hundreds gathered at several rallies in Kabul on Tuesday, where Taliban guards
fired shots to disperse the crowds. In Herat, hundreds marched, unfurling
banners and waving the Afghan flag – printed in the vertical tricolours of
black, red and green with the national emblem overlaid in white – with some
chanting <freedom>.
Later, two bodies were brought to the city’s central hospital from the site of
the protest, a doctor in Herat told the AFP news agency on condition of
anonymity for fear of reprisals.
<They all have bullet wounds,> he said.
Demonstrations have also been held in smaller cities in recent days, where women
have demanded their rights. The Taliban spokesman on Tuesday warned the public
against taking to the streets, adding that journalists should not cover any
demonstrations.
The group – which executed people in stadiums and chopped off the hands of
thieves in the 1990s – has said it would not stand for any resistance against
its rule.
Washington, which has said it is in <no rush> to recognise the new government,
expressed concern on Tuesday about its members but said it would judge it by its
actions. <We note the announced list of names consists exclusively of
individuals who are members of the Taliban or their close associates and no
women. We also are concerned by the affiliations and track records of some of
the individuals,> a State Department spokesperson said.
<We understand that the Taliban has presented this as a caretaker cabinet.
However, we will judge the Taliban by its actions, not words.>>
Espessialy vieuw images here because a picture says more than a 1000 words:
https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2021/9/8/photos-afghans-protest-fearing-curbs-on-women-rights-free-speech
Al Jazeera
7 Sept 2021
Ali M Latifi
<<Hundreds of Afghans take to Kabul’s streets calling for ‘freedom’.
Protests erupt in the Afghan capital, with chanting of anti-Pakistan slogans,
after the Taliban completes takeover of the country.
Kabul, Afghanistan – Hundreds of protesters took to the streets of the capital
Kabul chanting anti-Pakistan slogans and calling for <freedom>, a day after
resistance leader Ahmad Massoud called for an <uprising> against the Taliban
rule.
The demonstrations – which ranged in size from several hundred to a few dozen –
began on Tuesday morning and continued into the afternoon before they were
dispersed by the Taliban fighters firing into the air, protesters told Al
Jazeera.
Journalists also said that they were prohibited from filming, with TOLONews, a
private broadcaster based in Kabul, saying at least one of their cameramen was
detained for filming the protests. A source in the traffic police from the
previous administration speaking to Al Jazeera from near the entrance to the
Presidential Palace, said they saw the Taliban destroy several cameras and
arrest journalists as they followed protesters towards the palace. Shakib Ghori,
one of the protesters who marched towards the Presidential Palace, said that the
crowd of hundreds were only calling for <freedom> and criticising the
<intrusion> of neighbouring Pakistan into Afghanistan’s domestic affairs.
Ghori said though the protesters were demanding an inclusive government and that
the rights of women be respected, none of their gatherings was meant to be
explicitly anti-Taliban.
<We were asking for our rights. A political system that respects all Afghans.
And an end to Pakistan’s constant interference in Afghanistan, that’s it,> Ghori
said adding that he saw no reason for the Taliban to try and break up the
protest.
<We didn’t say anything about the Taliban, so why would they fire?>
Ghori said the Taliban also began to hit people, and he was also hit by the butt
of a gun. He also said that he transferred at least two injured protesters to
nearby hospitals.
More protests planned.
Demonstrators at other gatherings also reported having seen injured people. At
least four protests were reported in Kabul. However, Al Jazeera could not
independently verify those claims. Protesters said their movement will continue
into the coming days with more and more gatherings being planned online. The
demonstrations began late on Monday evening with hundreds of people in Kabul and
the central province of Daikondi rallying and chanting anti-Pakistan slogans.
The protests came after the Taliban chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid warned
against any challenge to their rule after capturing the Panjshir Valley,
completing their control in all the 34 provinces of the country.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/7/afghanistan-hundreds-take-to-the-street-in-anti-taliban-protest
Note by Gino d'Artali: The mentioned TOLONews is related to Rukhshana Media.
Al Jazeera
7 Sept 2021
<<Aid groups warn of ‘impending humanitarian crisis’ in Afghanistan.
Call for funding as thousands of health centres and NGOs face closure affecting
millions of Afghans.
International aid agencies have raised the alarm about an <impending
humanitarian crisis> in Afghanistan, with medical charity Doctors Without
Borders (Medecins Sans Frontieres, or MSF) saying the country’s vulnerable
healthcare system was facing a <potential collapse>.
On Monday, the United Nations appealed for almost $200m in extra funding for
life-saving aid in Afghanistan after the Taliban’s takeover last month resulted
in the exodus of aid workers and subsequent funding cut. <Basic services in
Afghanistan are collapsing and food and other life-saving aid is about to run
out,> said OCHA spokesman Jens Laerke on Monday.
Martine Flokstra from the MSF said an already dire situation in Afghanistan’s
hospitals has become worse since the Taliban’s march on Kabul on August 15
triggered a collapse of the West-backed government.
She said medics have not received salaries in months and health centres are
running out of medicines amid an increase in the number of patients coming to
facilities. <So potential collapse of the healthcare system is one of our major
concerns,> she told Al Jazeera.
<Sirens are sounding,> Al Jazeera’s Charlotte Bellis, reporting from Kabul, said
about SOS being sent out by aid agencies such as World Health Organization
(WHO), MSF, Afghan Red Crescent and Red Cross.
The WHO has warned that Afghanistan was becoming increasingly desperate and that
a pause in the country’s wellness projects has left millions of Afghans at risk
of losing essential medical care. <WHO has said that 90 percent of their clinics
will close imminently,> Bellis said, adding that last year they treated millions
of people through their 2,300 health clinics spread across the country.
Continue to provide assistance
The UN humanitarian agency OCHA said the extra sum meant a total of $606m in aid
was now needed for Afghanistan until the end of the year, as the country has
been cut off from the international financial institutions and its foreign
reserves frozen by the US.
Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday that they will
continue to provide assistance despite sanctions on the Taliban. <We are
determined with the international community to continue to provide the Afghans
with humanitarian assistance. We can and will do that working through partners
and NGOs such as the United Nations as sanctions remain in place on
Afghanistan,> he said at a news conference in the Qatari capital Doha.
Al Jazeera’s Bellis said donor countries are trying to find ways to send aid
through different aid agencies.
<It is a complicated picture in Afghanistan. It is a vulnerable country, but it
has always relied on international aid and donors and a lot of that money isn’t
coming because of sanctions on the Taliban,> she said.
UN meet over Afghan issue
The Afghan situation will be discussed next Monday at a ministerial meeting in
Geneva hosted by UN chief Antonio Guterres. The country, now under the control
of the Taliban after 20 years of war, is facing a <looming humanitarian
catastrophe>, Guterres’s spokesman Stephane Dujarric warned last week announcing
the conference. OCHA voiced hope that countries would pledge generously at the
conference, saying $606m was needed to provide critical food and livelihood
assistance to nearly 11 million people, and essential health services to 3.4
million. The funds would also go towards treatment for acute malnutrition for
more than a million children and women, water, sanitation and hygiene
interventions, and protection of children and survivors of gender-based
violence.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/7/un-ramps-up-afghan-aid-appeal-as-catastrophe-looms
Al Jazeera
6 Sept 2021
<<Google locks Afghan gov’t emails to keep from Taliban: Report.
Gov’t databases, emails could give details on employees of the former
administration, contractors, allies, Reuters said.
'Wealth of information’
Publicly available mail exchanger records show that some two dozen Afghan
government bodies used Google’s servers to handle official emails, including the
ministries of finance, industry, higher education, and mines. Afghanistan’s
office of the presidential protocol also used Google, according to the records,
as did some local government bodies.
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/9/6/google-locks-afghan-govt-emails-to-keep-from-taliban-report
Note from Gino d'Artali:
I will immediately give this info to Rakshana Media knowing they have problems
with their email accounts and ask them to forward it to colleague journalists
they know.
Rukhshana Media
<<The Taliban shot dead a former female police officer in Ghor
14 September (i.e. 4 Sept)
Province.
A local journalist in Ghor province told Rakhshaneh media that Hassan Hakimi, a
civil activist in Ghor, was quoted as saying that the policeman was working in
the province's central prison before the fall of Ghor to the Taliban and was
named Negar.
The reporter, who did not want to be named in the news, said that according to
Hakimi, Taliban members shot the woman in the evening (Saturday, September 4) at
her home in the city of Firuzkuh.
According to the information newspaper Rooz , some popular sources in Ghor have
claimed that the woman was pregnant in addition to having a baby. The Taliban
has not yet commented. Women in the police and army are worried about Taliban
attacks. These women call on the international community to put pressure on the
Taliban to refrain from retaliatory and retaliatory attacks on the military.>>
Al Jazeera
7 Sept 2021
Note Gino d'Artali: Excerpt from the online article
<<The Taliban had promised an <inclusive> government that represents
Afghanistan’s complex ethnic makeup – though women are unlikely to be included
at the top levels.>>
What a surprise!!
In any case, read the article here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/7/taliban-announce-acting-ministers-of-new-government
Al Jazeera
6 Sept 2021
<<Google locks Afghan gov’t emails to keep from Taliban: Report.
Gov’t databases, emails could give details on employees of the former
administration, contractors, allies, Reuters said.
'Wealth of information’
Publicly available mail exchanger records show that some two dozen Afghan
government bodies used Google’s servers to handle official emails, including the
ministries of finance, industry, higher education, and mines. Afghanistan’s
office of the presidential protocol also used Google, according to the records,
as did some local government bodies.
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/9/6/google-locks-afghan-govt-emails-to-keep-from-taliban-report
Note from Gino d'Artali:
I will immediately give this info to Rakshana Media knowing they have problems
with their email accounts and ask them to forward it to colleague journalists
they know.
Rukhshana Media
4 Sept 2021
<<The monologue that has been silenced by the voices of Afghan women.
A woman in the safest city in the world walks day and night in deep helplessness
to save her young sisters from a fallen cable.
At seven o'clock in the evening, Swiss time, Mursal Ali's father called her and
said in a trembling voice, <My daughter, do not worry, Mazar-e-Sharif has fallen
and I have sent your mother and sisters to Kabul.> She wakes up that night
crying and wailing over her sisters and all the women of Afghanistan who have
fallen back into the black ideological pit of Talabani.
The next dark night, he discovers that his sisters have thousands of other
sisters trapped in the darkest part of the history of ignorance and misogyny.
Mursal Ali Zani launches silent protest in Switzerland. She stands on the side
of the road for two hours a day on official days, and continues to protest in
silence until no one asks a question.
She says Afghan women need help more than ever at this time. He wants women's
voices to be heard alone; However, her friends have accompanied her so far, and
several Swiss media outlets have reported on his protest, and some Swiss
citizens have supported Mersel with a smile and sometimes even asking how we can
help you.>>
Please read more here:
https://rukhshana.com/monologue-that-has-been-silenced-by-voices-of-afghan-women
Note from Gino d'Artali: with the choice to read the article in Arabic. Also,
with my deepest respect for Rakshana Media but they mixed up a 'she' for a 'he'.
Rukhshana Media
4 Sept 2021
<<Hundreds of Afghans are fleeing the country every day as US-led foreign troops
announce the withdrawal of US-led troops from Afghanistan and the spread of
Taliban insurgent attacks across the country.
Among them, however, are those who, as the saying goes, <have no place to go and
no place to stay,> are divorced women living alone. Ever since the US decided to
withdraw its troops from Afghanistan, the fear of the Taliban returning and the
deteriorating security situation in the country has become a nightmare for all
Afghans, especially women living alone.
Rakhshaneh Media have spoken to some of these women about their concerns. The
women say that in the nearly eight years of loneliness they experienced, and in
a situation where Afghanistan was better off, they could hardly have fought for
their most basic rights in Afghanistan's traditional and patriarchal society,
and now if the Taliban When power returns, they have no way of surviving.
On the seventh floor of a building on the western outskirts of Kabul, two women
live alone. Roghayeh and Tahereh. Women who have been separated from their
husbands for about seven or eight years.>>
The Guardian
3 Sept 2021
Emma Graham-Harrison in Kabul and Akhtar Mohammad Makoii
<<Evidence contradicts Taliban’s claim to respect women’s rights.
There are signs of a return to something worryingly close to the hardline
restrictions of the past across Afghan life.
When Taliban fighters moved into Herat city in western Afghanistan last month,
one thing mattered more to some of them than the battle itself. As gunmen faced
off around the governor’s office, a group of militants came to Shogofa’s*
workplace and ordered all the women home.
<They hadn’t even taken all the city, but they came to our headquarters. The
manager called an emergency meeting and they told all the women to leave,> she
said. As the main breadwinner for her widowed mother and disabled brother,
losing her job means destitution. So on Thursday she decided to publicly
challenge Afghanistan’s new rulers. With about 40 or 50 other women, she walked
to the seat of city government chanting: <No fear, we are united.> <We hoped we
could tell the governor how we are struggling, but they let us stand there for
some time then removed us – we couldn’t even meet him,> she said.
Since seizing Afghanistan, Taliban spokesmen and high officials have promised to
respect women’s rights to work and education, albeit within an Islamic framework
they refuse to define. These pledges have prompted an international discussion
about how much the Taliban have changed since they ruled the country with
extreme and oppressive misogyny in the 1990s, barring women from almost all work
and education.
There have been calls from abroad to give the group time to form a government
and lay out its policy before pressing too hard on women’s rights. But there is
increasing evidence from across Afghanistan that the biggest changes may be in
messaging, rather than ideology.
Women protesting in Herat had been stripped of their jobs two weeks ago; reports
from elsewhere include gunmen ordering bank tellers out of their jobs in
Kandahar.
The Taliban have already asked most women to stay home, claiming it is a
temporary measure for <security reasons>, but that explanation has an ominous
ring to Afghan women whose memories stretch back to the last time the group held
power.
<We heard some of these explanations in 1996 to 2001, when the Taliban said that
the reason girls couldn’t study and women couldn’t work was because the security
situation wasn’t good, and once the security situation was better they could go
back. Of course that moment never arrived,> said Heather Barr, associate
director of the women’s rights division at Human Rights Watch.
<This indicates that even in the 1990s the Taliban felt the need to disguise
some of their misogyny. So this is not an entirely new communications strategy
they are pursuing now and Afghan women can see that.>
Other crippling rules from that period that have resurfaced unofficially,
according to accounts from Afghan women, include a requirement for a male
guardian, or mahram, to accompany them in any public space.
Bano, another protester in Herat, works in healthcare, one sector where the
Taliban have specifically called on women to come back to their jobs, but says
she was ordered home for commuting alone.
Her husband, a soldier, has been missing in action for three years and with no
adult sons or brothers nearby, she has no one to fill this role. <They said I
should stay at home because I don’t have a mahram to accompany me to the
entrance of the clinic,> she told the Guardian by phone.
She has been the sole breadwinner for three children since her husband went
missing and she is getting desperate. <I am borrowing money from my friends and
relatives in the city. We cannot go on like this.>
The women said they spoke for many others facing similar crises, but who were
too frightened to come out on Taliban-controlled streets.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/03/afghanistan-women-defiant-amid-taliban-crackdown
Gino d'Artali
3 september 2021
Inside information in Pashir from an anonymous female journalist who tells on
the phone that residents flee as Taliban intensifies battle to take Panjshir.
The fighting has been going on for 4 days now and is between the taliban and
Ahmad Massoud, the son of slain commander, Ahmad Shah Massoud. The taliban tries
to also fully control this province.
But the innocent people, families with children, are scared and starving because
also they cannot withdraw money from the bank and small shop and supermarket are
reluctant to re-open.
I'll keep you informed as good I can.
Al Jazeera
2 Sept 2021
By Ali M. Latif.
<<Herat women protest against Taliban over right to work.
About 60-80 women demonstrate in Herat city demanding Taliban’s commitment on
women’s empowerment.
Dozens of Afghan women have demonstrated in the western city of Herat to demand
their rights to employment and education. Mariam Ebram, who was in attendance at
the protest on Thursday, told Al Jazeera that they took to the streets out of
frustration with the lack of answers from the de facto Taliban government on
women’s right to work.
The 24-year-old said that for weeks she, and other women, were told not to come
to work or were turned away when they arrived at their offices in the biggest
city in western Afghanistan.
Ebram said that she and a group of other Herati women met top Taliban officials
to ask for a clear explanation of their policies on the rights of women, but
never received a suitable answer.
<After weeks of trying to engage with the Taliban at all levels, the women
decided to make their voices heard publicly,> Ebram said.
<We tried talking to them, but we saw that other than the Taliban of 20 years
ago, there was no one there. There was no change,> she said, referring to
Taliban’s previous rule between 1996-2001, which was marked by ban on women
education and employment.
Since retaking Afghanistan last month, the Taliban leadership has assured that
they would allow women to work and pursue education, as Afghans fear the return
of strict rule.
She said the women spoke frankly to several Taliban leaders, including the
police chief and the director of information and culture, <You got rid of the
occupier, you snuffed out democracy, but what will you bring in place of it, and
what will our role be?>
Dozens of women in western Herat province protested in the city and chatting
<don’t afraid, don’t afraid, we are together>.
It is the first ever protest in the country after Taliban took over
Afghanistan.]
‘Corrupt’
Ebram said she accepted the Taliban’s criticism of the previous government as
<corrupt>. But they wanted to know what the new Taliban-led system would offer
to women, she told Al Jazeera.
She said a recent interview by senior Taliban leader Sher Mohammad Abbas
Stanikzai forced them to take to the streets. In a recent interview with the BBC
Pashto, Stanikzai said there “may not” be a place for women in a future
Taliban-led government.
<All we are asking for is rights,> Ebram said of the women’s demands, adding
that <a government without women will never last.>
However, she said that if the Taliban allows equal representation of women in
the government and Loya Jirga (national assemblies), she and her colleagues
would accept them.
In recent weeks, the Taliban has been sending mixed messages about women
working. In late August, the group’s spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said that
women who work with the government should stay at home until they can insure
their safety on the streets and in offices.
However, last week, the Taliban called on female workers at the Ministry of
Public Health to return to work.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/2/women-in-herat-protest-outside-governors
Al Jazeera
2 Sept
Marwan Bishara
Senior political analyst at Al Jazeera
<<Of Western wars and Muslim women.
If Western wars are meant to ‘liberate’ Muslim women, why did centuries of
Western military intervention fail to do so?
Author’s note: Twenty years ago, the United States and the United Kingdom
exploited the cause of women and girls in Afghanistan and the rest of the Muslim
world to justify their invasion, occupation and other forms of intervention in
Muslim nations. Their leaders enlisted their wives, Laura Bush and Cherie Blair,
in the propaganda war to “lift the veil” on the Taliban, well after the group
retreated under fire.
In the following years, more women entered the workforce and more girls went to
school, but Afghans continued to suffer from widespread poverty, illiteracy, and
patriarchy compounded by violence, repression and war, hurting women first and
foremost. Afghanistan became the “forgotten war” and the cause of its women
disremembered until recently when the Trump administration basically handed
Afghanistan back to the Taliban and the Biden administration withdrew US forces
rather humiliatingly from the country.
Suddenly, the cause of Afghan women is back in the headlines for fear that the
little that was accomplished may be reversible. As I wrote back in 2010 in the
piece below, despite the best of intentions on the part of many, Western
military crusades in the Muslim world do not solve social and political
problems; they compound them.
Editor’s note: The article below first appeared on Al Jazeera’s website on
August 5, 2010, under the title Western wars vs Muslim women.
note from Gino d'Artali: the below of the cryfreedom.net page is like the above
quotes i.e. excerpts.
Western media is awash with reports about Taliban mistreatment of women in
Afghanistan and Pakistan that feature countless voices in support of the war to
secure a “brighter future for women’s rights”. This week’s Time magazine cover
story is a case in point.
If Western wars <liberated> Eastern women, Muslim women would be – after
centuries of Western military interventions – the most ‘liberated’ in the world.
They are not, and will not be, especially when liberty is associated with
Western hegemony.
Afghanistan has had its share of British, Russian and American military
intervention to no avail. In fact, reports from credible women’s groups there
signal worsening conditions for Afghan women since the US invasion a decade
ago.>>
Read more here:
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2021/9/2/western-wars-vs-muslim-women
Al Jazeera
1 Sept 2021
<<From: The Stream
Afghanistan: What’s next for those who stayed?
The Taliban are celebrating after the departure of the last US troops in
Afghanistan after 20 years of occupation but what comes next is unclear.
Over the last two weeks, all eyes had been on Kabul airport as the US and NATO
countries worked to evacuate their personnel and Afghan allies before a deadline
of August 31. But with the world’s media focused on the evacuation, what has
been happening elsewhere in the country as Afghans adjust to life under the
Taliban?
For some, the Taliban represent a welcome change from the government of former
president Ashraf Ghani, widely reported to have been rife with corruption.
Others are fearful about what their rule could mean for personal freedoms,
particularly those of women and girls.
The new government of Afghanistan has a host of immediate issues to address,
including food and economic insecurity. Afghans are struggling to withdraw money
from banks while others are in desperate need of food and shelter. The United
Nations has estimated that millions of people are at risk of severe
malnutrition.>>
Watch here the video:
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/the-stream/2021/9/1/afghanistan-whats-next-for-those-who-stayed
The Guardian
31 August 2021
Daniel Boffey in Brussels
<<Germany warns EU against setting target of Afghan refugees.
Interior minister says ‘pull-effect’ could risk sparking fresh European
migration crisis.
Germany has warned fellow EU governments against following the UK’s lead in
setting a target number of refugees from Afghanistan to be resettled in the
union, claiming it will act as a pull-factor.
Horst Seehofer, the German interior minister, said that despite the reluctance
of countries such as Austria there should be a common EU asylum policy but that
the union should not risk a new migration crisis.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/31/germany-warns-eu-against-setting-target-of-afghan-refugees
The Guardian
31 August 2021
Akhtar Mohammad Makoii in Islamabad
<< <People are broken>: Afghans describe first day under full Taliban control.
Citizens tell of ‘absolute feeling of depression’ after last American troops
left country overnight.
Arifa Ahmadi* started her first day under full Taliban control by burning her
jeans and any other clothes that the Taliban would be likely to disapprove of as
the nation woke up to a new era after the last American troops left the country
overnight.
Ahmadi is a part of the generation that has grown up during the past 20 years
and enjoyed freedom, education and employment under a government backed by the
west – but lost her job after the Taliban took over the country.
<I tried a lot to get a job in a customs office in Farah and I got that. I
celebrated it with my friends. I invited them to my home. We were very happy,>Ahmadi
told the Guardian. <But I lost it only after three weeks. Many of women were
asked by the Taliban to leave the office. As I looked at the situation, I didn’t
even try to go back.>
She added: <A man with a long beard is sitting on my chair now.>
The Taliban have so far been at pains to show a more conciliatory face to the
world, with none of the harsh public punishments and outright bans on public
entertainment that characterised their previous time in power before 2001.
But Ahmadi left Farah after the Taliban overran the city and has been living in
Kabul since then, hoping to leave the country through a foreign company.
<I have been crying since this morning. My brother went out and bought me a
burqa, I burned my jeans today. I was crying and burning them, I burned my hopes
with them. Nothing will make me happy any more. I am just waiting for my death,
I do not want this life any more,> Ahmadi said.
<Since the Taliban took Farah, all these days I was feeling like I’m falling,
and today I felt like crashing to the ground and dying. I have no feeling now, I
am a dead girl now. Everything finished for me this morning, and also for all
the people in the city. You can see nobody laughing outside. An absolute feeling
of depression is all over the city.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/31/people-are-broken-afghans-describe-first-day-under-full-taliban-control
The Guardian
31 August 2021
Nelufar Hedayat
<<My Afghan relatives refuse to be forced back into their homes. Talking to them
is heart-wrenching, but leaves me with hope.
Nelufar Hedayat is an Afghan-British journalist.
I call my father every other day now. This is new. There used to be times where
weeks would go by and we wouldn’t hear from each other. Now it’s different.
Often, I call him to help stymie the gulps and tears, the flood of feelings of
hopelessness, to talk about the trauma and the flashbacks I’m having from when I
was made a refugee of the war in Afghanistan in the 1990s.
I’m a different person from three weeks ago – before the Taliban walked in and
took over Kabul, declaring themselves the new leaders of Afghanistan. My
headphones blare out warbling ballads by Farhad Darya, a name many might not
recognise but, to millions of Afghans and our diaspora, an icon and arguably the
most lauded male pop star to come out of my beautiful broken birth-land. <Oooh
those days / Safe as houses, boy we were safe / our hearts close together /
Lying in the acacia’s shade, Kabul was safe.>
The words are piercing to me. Afghanistan, in the past century or so, has never
been both peaceful and prosperous. What we would now call a developing nation,
Afghanistan has for many reasons been a poor one. The past 20 years of western
occupation and proxy warfare have carved destitution on the land and chiselled
despair on the faces of many of my countrymen and women.
The dream of self-determination has eluded Afghans for longer, more than 40
years and counting. Whatever the invading force, whether internal or external,
the land of the Afghans has been a battleground of ideologies. Communism,
capitalism, liberal democracy or Islamic state. None has lasted long. Through
foreign meddling, the graveyard of empires has become the graveyard of innocent
Afghans too, lest we forget.
It’s true that on balance the occupation of Afghanistan since 2001 was a good
thing. Sort of. There were pockets of progress. I’ve seen it myself in my years
of reporting and visiting, and from hearing stories from all my family still
living there. The average life expectancy increased by 10 years. Literacy rates
increased to 43% and, among young adults, reached 65%. Afghan girls and boys
went to school in droves and women were allowed to work, become politicians,
journalists and academics. That’s not to say it was all women’s liberation and
nation-building. There was economic strife, and a hailstorm of terror attacks.
It’s a testament to the Afghan people that, despite the loss of interest by the
international community, the people still made such gains.
As a former refugee, I’m often asked about the women of my birth-land. In 2011 I
made my first documentary for the BBC about what life was like for the women of
Afghanistan. To this day I am awestruck by their bravery and stoic persistence.
I think of them when I’m fearful, or tired of fighting my struggles: the
glassy-eyed stare they would give me when I would ask, <Aren’t you scared of
being killed for writing/saying/doing this?>. I know that stare now. It’s the <I
can’t not do this> look that women who are fighting for their very existence
have all over the world. It’s the silence of terror, not triumph.
When I watched TV footage from the Hamid Karzai International airport compound,
with the talented women and men of Afghanistan getting ready to be evacuated for
new lives as refugees, I could think only of the women who fought a repressive
culture, near abject poverty and the Taliban, just to now be deprived of the
fruits of their toil.
Tens of thousands of Afghans have escaped Taliban control, among them the
country’s brightest and best. Once again, Afghanistan suffers the incalculable
cost of a brain drain.
The Taliban high command are instructing their countryfolk to stay and build
their new emirate – with the caveat that, for now, women should not leave the
house until the rank-and-file Talib can be trained in how not to brutally
assault them.
I think of these women, including my cousins and aunties that I know will refuse
to be forced back into their homes. I can’t bring myself to speak to them, so my
dad puts the phone on speaker so I can listen. <Nazir,> his older sister says,
<I had to shut the school again, we’re running out of money and food. I’ve said
so much against them, they won’t let me live. I know it.> In another call, my
cousin says: <I taught a course in democracy, uncle. I know they will come to
kill me. Thank you for everything you have done for us. Please forgive me if I
have ever upset you. God have mercy.>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/31/fear-family-kabul-taliban-resist-afghan
Rukhshana Media
<<On the fourth day of Taliban rule in Afghanistan, Kabul is almost empty of
women. At least it is empty of working women. The presence of women is very
small and with Islamic hijab. Only those women who were accompanied by a man
were able to leave their homes.
These women left their homes only to buy their daily necessities. All
educational centers, schools, universities, public and private offices have been
closed since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan.
On the third day of the Taliban's rule in Kabul, Rakhshaneh's correspondent in
the city encountered several groups of women, all in long black uniforms,
walking around the city with a man. Unlike a few days ago and before the fall of
Kabul, women do not walk fearlessly. The eyes are frightened and move fast. But
the presence of armed Taliban in the city is more than two days ago.
Today, August 18, the fourth day of the Taliban presence in the Afghan capital,
women are still at home. Only a handful of female journalists and media workers
were present in their offices.>
woman is willing to be interviewed.
Control of all Afghan government departments except Afghan embassies and
political representations outside Afghanistan is in the hands of the Taliban,
and the group's white flag is flown in front of the Afghan government ministries
and independent offices. The city is empty of order and there are no police or
traffic that is a symbol of urban order. A Kabul resident said he had seen the
Taliban seize police rangers illegally speeding through the streets and
sidewalks.
At around 10 am Kabul time, I decided to go to the city after three days of
house arrest. With the consent of my parents, I was able to rent a taxi from a
transport company that provides transportation services. The taxi driver said
that after the Taliban's presence in Kabul, the transport company's female
customers had dwindled and that most of the girls who had previously used the
taxi's services left their homes in long robes and hijabs. The majority of the
girls who left their homes and used the taxi company are women and girls who
live alone or have no men in their homes. I still could not believe that the
Taliban were in control of Kabul. On the road, I felt calm for a moment when my
eyes fell on the police Ranger; But immediately the faces of the Taliban
soldiers riding in this Ranger changed my mood. Taliban militants use Afghan
police and army vehicles that once gave hope to Afghan citizens. They do not use
any specific uniforms to frighten citizens less.
Every few steps, Taliban armed forces are present in the city and control the
situation. All the banks and exchange offices are closed and people are in a
state of panic about what will happen.
The situation in Kabul is like a bubble at sea that will change whenever
possible. There is no law, except the strict law of the Taliban, which is
unbearable for the citizens of this city. The people of Afghanistan are afraid
of starting and repeating another civil war, and they are all terrified.
<I lost sleep, said a Kabul resident. I'm worried about what will happen in an
hour. The beginning of the civil war in this country has made everyone worried
and scared. "I hope Afghanistan does not experience civil and ethnic war this
time.>
The Red Bridge area, known as the cultural center of Afghanistan's young and
educated generation, is not as vibrant as before. Roads and sidewalks look
empty, especially. A small number of tired and depressed men are wandering
around the road from unemployment. All restaurants and coffee shops, including
those run by women, are closed. During these four days, restaurants and cafes in
Kabul were empty of women and no woman dared to go to a restaurant or cafe.
<Our world has changed forever," Leila Heydari, owner of the Taj Begum
restaurant, wrote on her Twitter account on the third day of the Taliban's rule
in Afghanistan. <There is no longer a crown.> The woman closed the gates of her
restaurant after the fall of Kabul.
In a few steps there is another restaurant run by women, closed for the fourth
day. All hairdressers in the city are closed. But instead, men's hairdressers
are open and active.
Tomorrow, 28 August, equals 19 August 2021, is the 122nd anniversary of
Afghanistan's independence. Hundreds of people in Nangarhar province today tried
to raise the official tricolor flag of Afghanistan. But they faced opposition
from the Taliban. Taliban fighters fired on protesters, blocking their work.>>
The Womens Centre
27 August 2021
<<How to Limit the Disaster for Afghanistan's Girls and Women.
This story was originally published by Newsweek.
Neelab* remembers life under the Taliban.
When she was 10, a talib stopped an SUV she was in. It was a wedding party—they
were all female members of her family, save for the male driver. The women,
realizing what was happening, hurriedly put on their burqas but a 16-year-old
cousin, Amineh*, froze in fear. The talib forced his way into the vehicle and
upon seeing Amineh’s hair, immediately began whipping her. Everyone started
screaming.
<Imagine, we were in such a good mood, coming from a wedding party,> Neelab
said. <And then this happened.>
There is an Afghan adage that says women <hold up half the sky.> On the surface,
the deal that the U.S. signed with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar on February 29,
2020, appeared to have sealed the women’s fate in Afghanistan. There were no
provisions for women’s rights. The U.S. government deferred the issue of gender
equality to intra-Afghan negotiations.
With the fall of Kabul and the Taliban in control of most of the country now,
how women’s rights will be defined is in the hands of the Taliban and their
interpretation of Sharia law. This may provide surprising wiggle room for future
negotiations. The
U.S., by carefully leveraging its partnerships with Muslim-majority countries,
may still be able to make a crucial difference to the lives of Afghan women and
girls. According to a Brookings Institution September 2020 report, the issue of
women’s rights is a highly contested and charged debate within Afghan society.
The good news in the past two decades is that Afghan women have made some
progress in terms of political representation, education, employment and health
care. Today, 27 percent of seats in parliament are reserved for women. In 2003,
fewer than 10 percent of girls were in primary education. By 2017, that number
had grown to 33 percent. By 2020, 21 percent of Afghan bureaucrats were women
compared with almost zero during the Taliban regime. Women’s life expectancy
increased from 57 years in 2000 to 66 in 2018. Maternal mortality rates declined
from 1,450 per 100,000 live births in 2000 to 638 per 100,000 in 2018.
But cultural norms persist. A 2019 study by UN Women and partners showed that
only 15 percent of Afghan men think women should be allowed to work outside the
home after marriage. Two-thirds of men feel that Afghan women have too many
rights. The same study observed that male Afghan powerbrokers <resent quotas for
women in public shuras (assemblies)> and in parliament. An August 2021 U.S.
Congressional Research Service report noted that the <failure to anticipate
Afghan cultural context undercut US efforts to support women and girls.>
The same UN study revealed that important segments of Afghan society appear to
be becoming more conservative, welcoming interpretations of Sharia law that call
for curtailing women’s rights and freedoms. About half of women languishing in
prison and 95 percent of girls in juvenile detention are detained for <moral
crimes> such as having sex outside of marriage. Female rape victims have been
murdered by their families in <honor killings.>
Read more here:
https://womensmediacenter.com/women-under-siege/how-to-limit-the-disaster-for-afghanistans-girls-and-women
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