The latest: The Taliban officials had again arrested a woman protester in Kabul, but later released her on Thursday. Sources said that Wahida Moharrami was one of the girls protesting against the Taliban’s gender discrimination in Kabul and had been arrested three days ago from the Dasht-e-Barchi area of Kabul.
Go deeper:
- The Taliban unit which had arrested Moharrami briefly called her family on the first day of the detention and said she had been arrested by the Taliban.
- Wahida Moharrami left the house on March 20 to participate in a Nowroz program, but did not return home.
- On March 8, she had protested in Kabul, calling the Taliban’s restrictions on women a gender apartheid.
- Moharrami regularly participated in women’s protests in Kabul and demanded women’s full rights.
- As universities opened to boys, Wahida was one of the girls who read books at the rear of Kabul university’s closed gate in a symbolic protest.
Zoom out: It should be noted that the detention and torture of girls and women is not new, and the group has always done so. Women-led protests have become increasingly rare in Afghanistan since their return. Participants risk arrest, violence and social stigma for taking part.
- In December 2022 too, the Taliban arrested five women taking part in a protest in the Afghan capital, Kabul, against the ban on women attending universities.
- On International Women’s Day, March 8 too, Afghan women protested against Taliban’s regressive decrees in Kabul and in Ghor and arrested a protester from Ghor, Habiba Sharifi.
- According to an Amnesty International report, people who publicly criticize “abusive rules” of the Taliban have been arrested without any explanation. This includes those speaking in defence of the rights of women and girls, Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard said in the report.
