The attack that killed Mursal Nabizada is the first crime committed by a former politician since the return of the Taliban regime and its repressive policies
«A joint response to the serious situation of women in Afghanistan is urgently needed, that at least the countries participating in the international operation come together to take concrete measures against this gender apartheid. Messages of concern don’t help change things, it’s time to ban Taliban travel, for example. When women are locked up at home, how can they travel abroad without any problems?” is the question asked by Zahra Nader, an exiled Afghan journalist who runs “Zan Times” at the age of 32.
‘Zan’ means ‘women’ in Dari and this magazine is created, edited and led by Afghan women reporters covering human rights issues and in particular women’s rights. “We work in a network, with editors in different countries and colleagues who risk their lives to send us stories from the field. According to the Reporters Without Borders (RSF) report, four out of five female journalists have quit their jobs in the country and that’s a figure for December that will now be even worse,” recalled Zahra from Canada, the country to which she fled. her life after the return of the Islamists Those who stayed risk their lives with their activism, as evidenced by the murder of former deputy sheriff Mursal Nabizada, who was shot dead outside her home in Kabul on Saturday night.
Nabizada, a 29-year-old representative of the old parliament deposed by the Taliban, died along with his bodyguard, while his brother was wounded by bullets. Police have opened an investigation into the first murder of a former politician since the regime’s return in August 2021. Unlike many other lawmakers, Nazibada preferred to stay in the country and not seek refuge abroad. In September, she announced she was working for an NGO, an activity the country’s current rulers have banned women from.
After news of his death spread, several organizations expressed their rejection of the attack. Mariam Solaimankhil, also deposed, in an emotional message condemned the assassination of a “fearless champion of Afghanistan”, whom she described as a “true pioneer” and praised her courage for staying in the country “to fight for her people. Strong and outspoken woman who stood up for what she believed in, even in the face of danger.”
“It is a misogynistic regime, but as a government they are eager to gain international recognition. They care a lot about what is thought of them abroad and they should be used as a stick to pressure and force them to rectify their gender policy, “considers Nader, who asks” to do something as soon as possible doing.
In just 17 months of the emirate, Afghan women have lost most of the rights they’ve gained over the past two decades. The Islamists retook power after twenty years of war and two direct negotiations with the United States. They came with the message that they had changed from the Taliban who ruled the country in the late 1990s, but there is one thing their policies have not changed: the obsession with excluding women from public life.
The country is in ruins, the humanitarian crisis is unprecedented and Afghan funds abroad remain frozen, but the Taliban are not giving up and secondary schools and universities remain closed to women. Now they can’t work in international organizations either and this week they started closing the small businesses they used to run, hairdressers and beauty centers. They do not care that Save the Children, CARE and the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) have suspended their operations, they claim that “proper dress code is not respected in the offices of these organizations” and they consider this more important than any help that the population gets.
The politician and activist Fawzia Koofi, the first woman to hold the vice presidency of the Afghan parliament, survived two assassination attempts between 2010 and 2020 and the arrival of the Islamists forced her into exile. Now he has a busy international schedule to prevent the world from forgetting about his country and especially the Afghans. “Pressure will work, but so far we have not seen any real political pressure on them. Since the signing of the Doha Agreement with the United States, I even see friendship. We must impose travel bans and sanctions on those who do business with them, expel their families from countries where they send their children to study, some to prestigious universities, close their offices in other countries…” are the measures proposed by Koofi, who, like Zan’s journalists, demand more concrete actions and less worrying messages.
Koofi’s words clash with the normalization policies of countries like Russia, which is negotiating with the Islamists over the export of gasoline, gas and wheat, or China, which has signed a 25-year agreement with the emirate to begin oil extraction on Afghan soil. .
The United States and its allies are history and left Afghanistan after selling their citizens a short-lived fiction of democracy and human rights. Turkey is keeping its legation in Kabul open, it is the only NATO country to do so, but it does not hesitate to openly criticize gender politics and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the move to close schools and universities as “anti-Islamic”. “. ».
Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) also criticize the Islamists’ restrictions, but maintain ties. Doha has been of fundamental importance as the Taliban have had a political office there since 2013. The negotiation process with the United States and the signing of the Doha Agreements, which ended the US military presence in the Asian country. In the absence of a seat in the United Nations, this is the main window on the world the Islamists have, but the Qataris don’t have enough influence to force the Taliban to reconsider their gender policy.
Pakistan is another major player as it is the adopted homeland of some Islamists who have had their highest governing body in the neighboring country since the mid-1990s. Quetta, in Balochistan, has for decades been a sort of ‘de facto’ political capital of the emirate, where the shura ruled that made the most important decisions of the movement. The ideologues and politicians had a safe rear on Pakistani soil and the fighters found refuge in the mountains of the long and porous border of the ‘Af-Pak’ front to protect themselves from the enemy. Impossible to explain the Taliban’s survival without looking at Islamabad.
Source: La Verdad
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