Afghan women’s protest movements have issued a joint statement expressing support for what they describe as the resistance and struggle of anti-Taliban forces in Badakhshan and other parts of the country.
In the statement released on Wednesday, July 29, the groups said Taliban rule has subjected Afghanistan to one of the darkest periods in its contemporary history through repression, discrimination, violence, and widespread human rights violations.
Referring to the situation of women and girls, the statement said they have been excluded from public life and are living under what the groups described as the Taliban’s system of gender apartheid.
According to the statement, the Afghan people have reached a point where they can no longer endure the current situation. It added that, with peaceful avenues for seeking justice closed, resistance against authoritarian rule has become a natural and legitimate demand.
The statement also said: “We pay tribute to the courage of Afghanistan’s freedom-seeking youth in Badakhshan, including those fighting under the Freedom Front, Sepah-e Watan, and the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan. They have emerged from this society and are standing in the mountains of the Badakhshan Pamir for freedom, human dignity, justice, and the liberation of Afghanistan from Taliban rule.”
The groups also cited discrimination against members of the Shiite community, forced marriages, arbitrary arrests, and discrimination against the Persian language as examples of what they described as the Taliban’s repression of Afghanistan’s diverse society.
The women’s protest movements called on the international community to recognize what they described as the legitimate struggle of the Afghan people and the country’s resistance groups, and to listen to the voices of the Afghan people.
