It has now been over a month since the Taliban seized Kabul. As attention inevitably shifts elsewhere, the painful question arises: What's next? Is this another 'back to the future' moment? The signs are grim. Over the last two weeks, the Taliban have issued a number of edicts which demonstrate that their attitudes to women have not changed.
It has now been over a month since the Taliban seized Kabul. As attention inevitably shifts elsewhere, the painful question arises: What next? Is this another back to the future moment? The signs are grim. Over the last two weeks, the Taliban have issued a number of edicts which demonstrate that their attitudes to women have not changed.
On 18 September, they banned girls from attending secondary school. Then on Sunday 19 September, the Taliban instructed female employees in Kabul’s city government to stay home. Men would replace them where possible.
These edicts, restricting the rights of women and girls to work and study, hark back to the last time the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, emanating from the group’s extreme interpretation of Sharia law.
When the Taliban last ruled Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001, the group forbade women to go to school or university, forbade women to work, and only allowed women to leave their homes if accompanied by a male family member. Breaking these rules incurred punishments such as public whipping or stoning, as they likely will now.
The plight of Afghanistan’s religious and ethnic minorities such as the Hazaras is equally precarious. Experts and close watchers of Afghanistan have been warning of ethnocide and politicide under Taliban rule since the day Kabul fell. These warnings are grounded a long history of persecution and pain for minorities.
'Under their last five-year reign, the Taliban carried out a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Hazaras. People of Hazara background could be picked up in public solely because of their background and never be seen again.'
Hazaras, who represent around a fifth of Afghanistan’s population, have been persecuted since the rule of Abdur Rahman Khan, Amir of Afghanistan during the 19th Century because of their Shi’a religious beliefs and practices, and their distinct features.
By the early 20th Century, about 60 per cent of the Hazara population had been subject to ethnic cleansing. Many were also enslaved or sent into exile.
Under their last five-year reign, the Taliban carried out a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Hazaras. People of Hazara background