Afghan women have taken to social media to protest the latest draconian edict issued by AfghanistanThe Taliban regime, which the Biden administration says aims to completely remove from society. Women both inside and outside the country have sent a poignant video of themselves singing – a defiant response to The Taliban’s latest restrictive law prohibiting women and girls from using their voices or showing their faces outside the home.
As CBS News reported, Article 13 of the 114-page law adopted by Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities in August states that if a woman leaves her home alone, “she must hide her voice, face, and body.”
The Biden administration said the legislation sought to remove women from public life in Afghanistan and expressed growing frustration with the country’s Taliban regime, which returned to power in the summer of 2021 as US and allied forces pulled out in a chaotic retreat.
“I am concerned with our partners about the Taliban’s ‘morality law’ which aims to exclude women from public life,” US Special Envoy Rina Amiri said on Tuesday in a social media post. “My message is clear: our support for the Afghan people remains steadfast but our patience with the Taliban is running out.”
In response to the Taliban’s crackdown on human rights, activists and campaigners in Afghanistan, who have lived under intense Taliban surveillance, have begun uploading protest videos to social media labeling and blasting the law as stupid and repressive.
CBS News interviewed three women in Afghanistan who participated in the campaign. They all said they will continue to fight the Taliban’s new law because they have nothing to lose, and they called on the international community to shame the Taliban for their gender-based oppression. The woman hid her identity in the video, and CBS News is releasing only her name to protect her safety.
Afghan women have been subjected to harassment, captive and even physical attacks for bravely advocating for basic rights since the Taliban returned to power.
“Despite the uncertain future and the dangers we face every day, the women of Afghanistan will not remain silent,” Zuhal, who forced to abandon his education after 10th grade because of the Taliban’s draconian rule, told CBS News. “We will not give up, because I have no hope for the future and I think I will take all my dreams to the grave if I do not fight.”
Hakima, a former midwifery student who also failed to complete her education, said the Taliban were afraid of women’s voices and their influence on society. She said she believes it is important for women to continue speaking out to hold the Taliban regime accountable for its actions before the international community.
“The Taliban are afraid of women. They are afraid of women’s voices. They know how powerful Afghan women are, and our voices will destroy them. That’s why they want to silence half of society with laws that hate women,” he said. CBS News.
Hakima recorded a video at her home in northern Afghanistan with her three sisters to post on social media. In it, the women asked the world not to “forget the women of Afghanistan.”
“Talib, where are you, and the world is so far away?” Hakima sings in the video, holding a piece of paper with the words: “My face is not intimate.”
In another video, a woman is heard walking down a busy street in Kabul as she declares loudly: “I sing from the streets of Kabul, on the streets we walk. once protested for our rights and brutally suppressed, resulting in the loss of all our liberties.”
“I am a woman, I am the world, who sings of freedom and love,” she continued. “I stand firm, and I am not afraid of your cruelty.”
“Banning our voice is the last command the Taliban can give,” he said, “we will defeat you with our voice.”
Women’s rights activists outside Afghanistan also joined the campaign. Masih Alinejad, a prominent Iranian journalist and activist, shared a video of her singing a well-known Afghan song in support of the protests, many of whom used a hashtag that translated: “A woman’s voice is not intimate.”
Strong women’s movement X/Afghanistan
It has been three years since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, but no other country has officially recognized the group as the Afghan government since then. Hakima and Zuhal attribute that at least to the strength and determination of Afghan women, who continue to protest and raise their voices against the group.
“They don’t want women’s voices to reach the international community and UN agencies,”
“Our decision is that whatever new laws are issued regarding Afghan women and girls, we will fight them and raise our voices, and we will not win,” Hakima told CBS News.
Ahmad Mukhtar
