Why Taliban's Are Afraid Of Purple?

SALEEM SAMAD

The radicalised Taliban after recapturing Afghanistan in August 2021, the regime has promulgated a series of misogynist decrees which targeted women only.

Women are barred from higher education, jobs and business. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan issued nearly 20 decrees against women during the last one and a half years inviting global outcry. The

International Women’s Day on 8 March is observed worldwide, but Afghanistan is the world’s most repressive country for women and girls, deprived of their basic rights, said the United Nations.

Despite the dark clouds over Afghanistan, there is two good news on an international day.

First, Afghan broadcaster Tolo News aired an all-female panel in its studio with an audience of women to mark International Women’s Day, a rare broadcast since the Taliban took over the vibrant country, reports BBC.

Second, despite the strict enforcement of protests, the women held a protest in Kabul on International Women’s Day, calling for women’s access to education and work. The protestors called for the removal of blanket restrictions on women in Afghanistan.

Since 1908 International Women’s Day’s thematic colour purple stands for dignity and justice, green for hope, and white for purity. Purple is the colour of women’s empowerment and gender equality, which the Taliban hates to listen to.

Tolo News to mark the auspicious day held a discussion session. The panel of three women and one female moderator with surgical masks covering their faces discussed the topic of the position of women in Islam. Taliban is not prepared to hear a sermon on Islam from a woman.

International media rights defender Reporters Without Borders (RSF) is aghast that the Taliban has continued to erase women journalists from the media landscape in Afghanistan.

In less than two years. Half of the 526 media outlets that existed until the summer of 2021 have had to close and, of the 2,300 women journalists since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, fewer than 200 are still working. Almost all of the women journalists (90%) have had to leave their jobs and some have fled the country, although exactly how many have managed to flee is not known.

Those still working must accept conditions that are becoming more and more draconian if not impossible. The Taliban Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Repression of Vice has also imposed a strict dress code. When women journalists are on camera, they must be covered from head to toe and only their eyes may be seen.

The female protestors issued a statement saying the current challenges against women should not be forgotten.

“It is March 8 but women in Afghanistan have no right to celebrate this day. We are the women who are imprisoned in the country. The restrictions are worsened day-by-day,” said Jolia Parsa, a member of Junbish Itlaf Khodjosh Zanan.

The protesters appealed to the international community to pay attention to the situation of women in Afghanistan.

“Today, the gates of gyms, schools, universities and parks have been closed for women,” said a member of Junbish Itlaf Khodjosh Zanan.

The UN Secretary-General António Guterres laments that women and girls “are erased from public life” in Afghanistan.

On the other hand, hopes are dashed as universities reopen after a winter vacation, but it’s another painful reminder to young women of how their world is shrinking.

Due to growing restrictions as well as the country’s severe economic crisis, the International Labour Organisation (ILO) said female employment had fallen 25 per cent last year since mid-2021. It added that more women were turning to self-employed work such as tailoring at home.

The United Nations Mission to Afghanistan called on the Taliban to reverse restrictions on the rights of girls and women, calling them “distressing.”

The Taliban have said the authorities have set up a committee to examine perceived issues to work towards re-opening girls’ schools. But there is no light at the end of the tunnel.

The Islamic Emirate has repeatedly said that they are committed to the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan and that their rights are preserved within strict Islamic Sharia laws.

First published in The News Times, Dhaka, Bangladesh on 9 March 2023

Saleem Samad, is an award-winning independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad

As Kabul Burns, Need To Talk About Pakistan

Taliban fighters patrols the streets of Kabul

SALEEM SAMAD

It was certain that the suicide bombings at the Kabul airport during the crucial evacuation of tens of thousands of stranded foreign nationals and NATO troops, was an act of the Islamic State’s “Khorasan Province” (IS-KP), the branch of the organisation in Afghanistan and Pakistan that was officially recognised by Islamic State (ISIS) “Centre” in 2015.

The IS-KP was conspicuously quiet since the fall of Kabul, and it could be understood why.

The distinction between IS-KP and Taliban is well understood by several security experts. IS-KP is a non-state actor and the Taliban is an extension of deep state Pakistan. IS-KP is backed by the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, which also promised to establish Islamic Khilafat.

After 20 years, the Taliban re-entered Kabul. This time driving Humvees and riding tanks fluttering their white flag with signs “Shahada” in Arabic. The gun-trotting foot soldiers captured Afghanistan without a firefight, along with the Taliban were the Haqqani Network — is just the latest iteration of Pakistan’s jihad project in Afghanistan, since 1974.

Pakistan’s dreaded spy agency ISI has recruited, trained, armed, funded, and often led the Islamist militants in Afghanistan to create a colonial dependency because the ISI believes it is in a “civilizational” war with India.

Pakistan military hawks in Rawalpindi’s conspiracy theory insist that if India wins the heart of the Taliban for the completion of the mega infrastructure projects then India will “encircle” Pakistan.

Therefore, Rawalpindi hawks want to be the first to manipulate the controls of Afghanistan.

Twenty-five years ago, Rawalpindi began recruiting, training and arming the Pashtun tribesman to form the Taliban militia, with the knowledge of Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Major General Naseerullah Khan Babar, a retired officer of Pakistan Army and also the Interior Minister in Benazir’s cabinet admitted to a Pakistan journalist Hamid Mir of GEO TV that their government handed doles and weapons to many famous Afghan rebels like Ahmad Shah Masood, Burhanuddin Rabbani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in 1975 as boss of infamous border guards, the Frontier Corps on the directives of then Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, father of Benazir Bhutto.

Pakistan provided weapons and training to the Afghan Mujahideen in 1975 because the Afghan government led by Sardar Daud was allegedly sponsoring terrorism in Pakistan in collaboration with India.

Many know that Pakistan recruited ethnic Pashtuns from Quranic schools (Madrassahs) in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, formerly North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) and was known as Taliban.

Pakistan undertook responsibility on behalf of the Americans to provide protection and security of the multi-billion dollar Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline (TAPI) by American energy giant Unocal.

The Taliban was deployed as “pipeline police” and the Americans paid up the militia for guarding the pipeline.

Zalmay Khalilzad, who signed the Doha agreement with Mullah Baradar in 2020, arranged a visit of Taliban leaders to Unocal offices in the US in 1997.

According to Hamid Mir, many people say that the Taliban of today are different from the Taliban of 2001. “I think they are still loyal to their old ideology, but they have learned some new tactics in the last two decades.”

The political office of the Taliban working out of Qatar does not have independent decision-making authority. Decision-making powers lie with “Rahbri Shoora” or grand consultative council and most of its members were part of the resistance inside Afghanistan.

The Supreme Leader of the Taliban, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, is the ultimate authority on religious, political and military affairs. He makes decisions in consultation with his three deputies.

Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a founding member of the Taliban, looks after political affairs; Mullah Yaqoob, son of Mullah Omar, is head of military affairs and also looks after southern parts of Afghanistan. Sirajuddin Haqqani, the elder son of famous Afghan guerrilla commander Maulvi Jalaluddin Haqqani, looks after eastern parts of Afghanistan. Yaqoob and Sirajuddin are responsible for appointing provincial and district governors.

Taliban’s after the fall of Kabul announced to form a consensus unitary government in Kabul. The Taliban are very much flexible on the inclusion of all ethnic minorities, women and even non-Muslims in a new government, but have strong reservations on “western democracy”.

Nevertheless, fighting a superpower was not difficult for them. One generation defeated the Soviet Union, and another generation defeated the Americans but running a country is quite difficult.

Indeed, the Taliban can’t afford isolation and that’s why they need to address the concerns of all those countries that fear that the territory of Afghanistan will be used for terrorist activities against them.

In the last two decades, the Taliban learned to handle diplomats and media. Now they need to learn public diplomacy and the best way to win public trust comes through the ballot, not through bullets.

First published in The News Times, 2 September 2, 2021

Saleem Samad, is an independent journalist, media rights defender, recipient of Ashoka Fellowship and Hellman-Hammett Award. He could be reached at <saleemsamad@hotmail.com>; Twitter @saleemsamad