We Stand with the Women and Peoples of Afghanistan!
The Taliban has been steadily increasing its control of the country and in the last 10 days, emboldened by the final withdrawal of US and other international forces, its advance accelerated with a new momentum. Today the Taliban took over Kabul and President Ashraf Ghani has fled the country. We despair at the situation our sisters in Afghanistan now find themselves in and for this diary entry, we share these statements published by Women Defend Rojava, the European Network of Migrant Women and Feminist Dissent. Read and learn about this complex invasion and how you can give your support.
We invite everyone to support the organisations working to secure the rights of Afghan women and girls:
Women Living Under Muslim Laws
European Network of Migrant Women inviting all to a public international event STAND UP FOR AFGHAN WOMEN at 16:30 Central European Time on 28 August, the day when global protests will take place in cities across the world in solidarity with Afghan people. REGISTER FOR THE EVENT HERE
Statement from Women Defend Rojava
In Afghanistan, which for decades has been the stage of proxy wars, power was handed over to the misogynistic Taliban as a result of the dirty policies of the global hegemonic powers. This situation, which caused great rage and anger among women and the peoples in Afghanistan and all over the world, once again revealed the following truth: There is no power we can lean on other than selfpower, self-organization and self-defence. What happened in Afghanistan yesterday exposed very clearly the hypocrisy of the Western states. The NATO powers have clearly shown that for them, values such as democracy, freedom and women's rights were merely tools to find an excuse for their own dirty policies. Those who tried to legitimize their occupation with “women's rights” 20 years ago now leave the lives of millions of women to the mercy of the Taliban.
Statement by European Network of Migrant Women (ENoMW) on the Situation in Afghanistan and the Rights of Afghan Women and Girls
As the US-NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan is brought to a conclusion, the Taliban and their associates have completed their rapid takeover of most administrative centres, provincial capitals, and the capital of Afghanistan. With this, the Taliban forces are eliminating the progress, however frail, made in the last twenty years and turning the country into a Da’esh controlled twin, where the very thought of human rights is a punishable office. The scale and the timing of this attack has been unprecedented and cannot be described as anything but an invasion. Twenty groups — including Al-Qaida and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/ Da’esh) — are fighting alongside the Taliban against the Afghan people. Those who will pay the highest price for the brutal attack will be - and already are - women and girls.
Statement from Feminist Dissent
FEMINIST DISSENT STANDS IN SOLIDARITY WITH AFGHAN WOMEN AND WITH ALL THOSE FIGHTING FUNDAMENTALISM
Feminist Dissent views with horror and dismay the betrayal of the people of Afghanistan and all those fighting fundamentalist movements everywhere. Before and since the August 15th 2021 takeover of the country by Taliban, we have watched news of protest marches and heard Afghan women speak out. We are in awe of their steadfast courage in the face of brute force.
Feminist Dissent sees fundamentalist movements as modern political movements of the far right which use religion to exercise authoritarian control, especially over women. The Taliban was never seen by us as simply a form of medievalist Pashtun tribalism, and certainly not as a liberation movement. The dominant views from the ‘anti-imperialist left’, Western ‘peace’ movements, Western governments and counter-terror establishments converge in ways that both stereotype and sanitise the Taliban.