Some 20 Afghan women have taken to the streets of Kabul this Sunday to ask for “bread, work and freedom” and protest against the restrictions imposed by the Taliban.
Since its return to power in August, this fundamentalist Islamist movement has been limiting the freedoms won by women in the last 20 years after the fall of the previous Taliban regime (1996-2001).
“Education is my right! Reopen the schools!”, the protesters repeated, in front of the Ministry of Education, many of them covered with veils that also covered their faces. The women were able to walk a few meters before the Taliban cut them off and dispersed them, according to an AFP journalist.
“We wanted to read a statement, but the Taliban did not allow it,” said one of the participants. They took the mobile phones of some of the girls and prevented us from taking photos or making videos of the protest “, they explain.
Since their return to power, the Taliban have wanted women’s lives to bend to their fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. Thus, they have excluded Afghan women from public employment, restricted their movements and prevented them from attending secondary school.
In early May, a decree stipulated that the full veil in public was mandatory for women, preferably a burqa, and that it was better for them to “stay home” if they had no urgent reason to go out. These new measures provoked worldwide outrage. On Friday, the Taliban rejected the UN Security Council’s call to back down on these restrictions, calling these concerns “baseless”.
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