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Afghan Women Protest Taliban Despite Enormous Risks

By News and Guts

Hundreds of female protesters braved the threat of beatings and took to the streets of Kabul on Tuesday, denouncing Taliban rule of Afghanistan and demanding women’s rights. The Taliban fired warning shots to disperse the crowd, creating a chaotic scene in a country reckoning with a likely return to widespread government repression (watch video above).

The New York Times provides context:

It was a remarkable public display by women, who suffered brutal subjugation the last time the Taliban were in charge. Those who took to the streets in recent days fear the group has not changed.

The protests are happening as the Taliban cement their military grip on the country, announcing on Monday that they had seized the capital of restive Panjshir Province. And they have said they want to integrate members of the former Afghan Army into their new national security forces, saying they would offer more details on that process at a news conference on Tuesday afternoon.

Tuesday’s protesters shouted “Long live the resistance” and “Death to Pakistan,” a country they believe aided the recent Taliban resurgence.

Amid gunfire, one panic-stricken woman was caught on camera exclaiming, “The Islamic government is shooting at our poor people!” There have been no reports of injuries.

According to the BBC, the Taliban exhibited behavior at the protest that underscores their disdain for basic civil liberties:

Some journalists, including the BBC’s team, were prevented from filming at the rally. Afghanistan’s Tolo news agency reported that its cameraman was arrested and detained by the Taliban for nearly three hours.

A former government official, who asked to remain anonymous, told the BBC that Taliban members were taking close-up photos of leading protesters, possibly to help identify them later.

CNN reports:

Kabul News posted on Twitter that Ahmad Najim Sultani, a photographer for Kabul News TV, was injured and Imran Fazli, a journalist, was beaten during today’s protest in Kabul. “The Taliban also confiscated photography equipment,” it said.

CNN adds:

In one video from Kabul on Tuesday, a woman is seen to confront a Taliban fighter. Afghan journalist Ahmad Jawid Kargar told CNN that the Taliban detained dozens of women protesting in front of the presidential gate and took them to the basement of the Azizi Bank nearby. CNN has been unable to confirm how many people were detained.

Reuters reports that women are already seeing their rights disintegrate:

Teachers and students at universities in Afghanistan’s largest cities – Kabul, Kandahar and Herat – told Reuters that female students were being segregated in class with curtains, taught separately or limited to some campus areas.

“Putting up curtains is not acceptable,” Anjila, a 21-year-old female student at Kabul University, said by telephone, adding that women had sat apart from males in classrooms before the Taliban took over, but without barriers.

“I really felt terrible when I entered the class … We are gradually going back to 20 years ago.”
The Times spoke with an organizer of Tuesday’s protest:

The protests on Tuesday were the second demonstration involving women in the nation’s capital in less than a week, and it was also the second to be crushed violently.

Rezai, 26, one of the coordinators and organizers of the latest protest, said the demonstration was organized in coordination with people trying to organize a national resistance to the Taliban.

“We invited people using social media platforms,” she said. “And there were more people than we expected. We are expecting more rallies tonight because people do not want terror and destruction. The Taliban have had no achievements since they have taken power except for killing people and spreading terror. So it was an utterly self-motivated protest, and we just coordinated and invited people to participate.”

As they marched on Tuesday morning, they carried a banner with a single word: “Freedom.”