This past Saturday, some 300 women, covered from head to toe in black robes and with veils that only revealed their eyes, waved the white flag with black inscriptions of the Islamists and listened to several spokespersons who defended the new regime before hundreds of Afghans covered with a full black veil gathered at the Kabul University of Education. They are images that symbolize the dark future that awaits Afghan women while here in Spain the Minister of Equality, Irene Montero, dares to compare them with the Spanish.
The policy that the Islamist movement, which took power in Afghanistan in mid-August, will reserve for women raises concern both inside and outside the country. During the years they were in power (1996-2001) the Taliban trampled on the rights of Afghan women and restricted their simplest freedoms, such as studying, working or going out alone.
“We are against those women who protest in the streets pretending to represent Afghan women,” said one of the participants. Is freedom equal to loving the old government? No. That is not freedom, “he added. “The outgoing government abused women, hired them only for their beauty,” he criticizes.
In the audience, several women were again wearing the burqa, a full veil that has a mesh at the level of the eyes and whose use was mandatory during the first Taliban rule. Many others even wore black gloves so as not to show an inch of skin.
Sharia, Islamic law, was applied very rigorously between 1996 and 2001. On this occasion, the Taliban have promised that women’s rights will be respected and they will be able to study at university, as long as they wear an ‘abaya’ or Long black tunic that covers the whole body, and a veil, and explained that the classes will not be mixed or the students will be separated by a curtain. Only the media complacent with the left believe that the Taliban will relax their control over women.
#TalibanTakeover | Afghan women in large groups, covered by layers of black veils marched in support of the Taliban as they celebrated the group’s victory.
Details here 👇#AfghanWomen #Afghanistan pic.twitter.com/vygeig2co7
– editorji (@editorji) September 12, 2021
According to the Islamists they will also be able to work, but respecting the “principles of Islam”, a slogan that can be interpreted in many ways.
“We are satisfied”
This week, the Taliban unveiled the composition of their male-only interim government this week, but many doubts remain about the specific policies they will implement. One of the most important issues for the international community is the treatment of minorities and women. This Saturday, in the amphitheater of Kabul’s Shaheed Rabbani University, women also praised the new executive for banning street demonstrations.
In his case, an authorization was requested and obtained, according to Daud Haqqani, in charge of external relations in the Ministry of Education. After their speeches, the protesters took to the streets holding banners that read: “The women who have left Afghanistan cannot represent us” or “We are satisfied with the behavior of the muyaidines», Referring to the Taliban.
Unlike other demonstrations held this week, some of them also by women, who were dispersed with shots fired into the air by the Taliban, this rally was held without hindrance. “Those women who do not wear the hijab (veil) hurt us all,” he said. Shabana Omari, also a student at this university.
