While dozens of protesting women are still kept in very bad conditions in the official and private prisons of the Taliban, and human rights monitoring institutions and their families do not know about their fate. Today, Thursday, October 3, 2022, the police of the theocratic Taliban regime, brutally arrested Zarifa Yaqoubi and her several other colleagues in Kabul and transferred them to an unknown place.
Ms. Zarifa Yaqoubi was supposed to announce the “Afghan Women’s Movement” in the presence of a large number of women and journalists in the west of Kabul. The intelligence and police of the Taliban prevented the holding of this press conference and by attacking and beating women and girls, in addition to Mrs. Yaqoubi and several other female activists, a large number of journalists who were present to cover the press conference were also assaulted and arrested.
This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that the Taliban attack peaceful demonstrations, conferences, and protests of Afghan women, beat them, threaten, torture, imprison them, and even kill them. The misogynistic Taliban regime is afraid of the peaceful protests and brave resistance of Afghan women and girls, and they see the death of their medieval regime in the awakening and unity of women.
The Taliban regime that was overthrown by the United States and its allies in 2001 for supporting Al-Qaeda and misogyny, after twenty years without the slightest change in the nature, thinking, policy, and actions, in August 2021 once again they were delivered power to play on the fate of women and people of Afghanistan.
The Taliban’s crimes against women and the people of Afghanistan happen publicly in front of the governments that claim to defend human rights and women’s rights, and we do not see any other reaction from them except crocodile tears. During the 14 months of Taliban rule, while girls’ schools were closed and nearly 850,000 girls were deprived of education, hundreds of thousands of women were fired from government offices and work institutions, and severe restrictions were imposed on women, the international community is not only silent, but so far it has given 1.5 billion dollars in cash in the name of humanitarian aid to the Taliban government, and this financial support of the misogynistic Taliban regime has reached 40 million dollars every week.
The feminist activists and the Spontaneous Movement of Afghan Women call on the women and progressive forces of the world to express solidarity with Afghan women, fight and lobby for the release of Zarifa Yaqoubi and her companions and other female activists in the terrible prisons of the Taliban.
Spontaneous Movement of Afghan Women
October 3, 2022 – Kabul, Afghanistan
For more, please see the statement Afghan women need your solidarity.
