Afghanistan: Taliban Kill Woman For Not Wearing Burqa After Promising To Protect Women’s Rights
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Taliban fighters in Afghanistan shot and killed a woman for not wearing a burqua despite proclaiming to protect women’s rights and ensure a more inclusive country.
After taking control of Afghanistan from President Ashraf Ghani, Taliban militants vowed women would be permitted to work and study to university level and even encouraged them to join the government.
On Tuesday, August 17, longtime Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said in a news conference the Taliban would honour women’s rights within sharia law, and while restricting itself to the rights ‘that Islam gave [women]’, the promises marked a stark change compared to the previous treatment of women under Taliban rule.
From 1996 to 2001, when the Taliban was in control, females in Afghanistan were banned from working and leaving their homes without being accompanied by a male, as well as being forced to cover their faces.
In spite of the declarations made by Mujahid, a woman in district Taloqan, Takhar province was shot and killed by Taliban fighters for going out in public without a burqua on the very same day as the news conference, Fox News reports.
The broken promises were made starkly evident through a photograph which showed the woman lying in a pool of blood, with a number of people – two of which are said to be her parents – gathered around her.
Meanwhile, Taliban fighters in Kabul have reportedly been on patrol in residential areas searching for activists and government workers, with footage capturing gunshots as their vehicles accelerated down the street.
An Afghan and former State Department contractor told Fox News fighters were still enacting violence towards women, despite the vows for a more inclusive community.
He said Taliban fighters had set up checkpoints throughout Kabul and were going as far as to beat civilians trying to get to the airport to escape the militant’s rule, commenting:
There was kids, women, babies, old women, they could barely walk. They [are in a] very, very bad situation, I’m telling you.
At the end, I was thinking that there was like 10,000 or more than 10,000 people, and they’re running into the airport … The Taliban [were] beating people and the people were jumping from the fence, the concertina wire, and also the wall.
Though the Taliban has said women will be allowed to work, it has remained vague on what kind of jobs they will be allowed to do.
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Topics: News, Afghanistan, Kabul, Taliban, women's rights
