Women’s rights demonstrators bloodied as Taliban fighters break up Kabul protests

The Taliban has broken up a protest movement in Kabul with violence, sending women’s rights activists fleeing for their lives.

A group of women stage a rally in Kabul calling on the Taliban to ensure equal rights and allow them to be contributing members of Afghan society. Picture: Bilal Guler/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Taliban soldiers have stepped in to disperse a growing protest in Kabul as Afghan women took to the streets to defy the militant regime’s new order.

Crowds of women in their 20s flooded the streets for two days, laying wreaths at Afghanistan‘s defence ministry to honour soldiers who died fighting the extremist takeover, which saw the nation’s government toppled in weeks following the retreat of Western powers.

The Taliban has promised better rights for women under their Islamic rule. However, after weeks of horrific footage showing fighters executing dissidents, this claim has fallen on deaf ears for some.

Farhat Popalzai, a 24-year-old university student, said the protest movement was for women too afraid to speak up, let alone leave their homes, in the nation under siege.

“I am the voice of the women who are unable to speak,” she said, via the ABC. “They think this is a man‘s country but it is not, it is a woman’s country too.”

“We are here to gain human rights in Afghanistan. I love my country. I will always be here,” said another protester, 20-year-old Maryam Naiby.

Taliban fighters waded into the crowd and dispersed the protest as the demonstration turned towards the Presidential Palace. Eyewitnesses reported seeing fighters shoot their rifles into the sky and launch tear gas canisters into the march.

According to Sky News, a demonstrator named Soraya witnessed the moment Taliban soldiers “hit women on the head with gun magazines” and ”the women became bloody”.

Video: A number of women rights activists and reporters protested for a second day in Kabul on Saturday, and said the protest turned violent as Taliban forces did not allow the protesters to march toward the Presidential Palace. #TOLOnewspic.twitter.com/X2HJpeALvA

— TOLOnews (@TOLOnews) September 4, 2021

Last week, the Taliban warned women to stay home and not go to work, claiming that this was for their own safety as their fighters had not been trained to know how to deal with them.

Activist and former Afghan judge Najla Ayoubi said in an interview with Sky News that in recent weeks young women were “being shipped into neighbouring countries in coffins to be used as sex slaves”, and that families were being coerced into marrying off young daughters to Taliban fighters.

Taliban fighters were seen firing shots into the air to disperse protesters. Picture: Bilal Guler/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

The rally called on the Taliban to ensure equal rights in the country. Picture: Bilal Guler/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Young women took to the streets for two days in a row before the Taliban intervened. Picture: Bilal Guler/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Hours after the US withdrew from Afghanistan, Taliban members were going door-to-door in Kabul and executing people, a senior US official told Fox News.

So far, it is unclear who the victims are, but a Politico report confirmed by Fox News said that US officials in Kabul gave the Taliban a list of American citizens, green card holders, and Afghan allies in an effort to grant them entry to the airport which resulted in outrage from military officials behind the scenes.

President Joe Biden has acknowledged that “there may have been” such a list.

“Basically, they just put all those Afghans on a kill list,” one defence official told Politico.

Similar actions had already been taken in other parts of the country before the American military even left. Last Wednesday, a former translator for a high-ranking US Army Ranger told Fox News the Taliban had started executing allies of the US in public, in provinces away from the media attention of Kabul.

One woman came away bloodied after a reported clash with a Taliban fighter.

Last week, the Taliban warned women to stay home and not go to work, claiming it was for their own safety. Picture: Bilal Guler/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

“They are not doing really bad stuff in Kabul right now because there’s a lot of media focus on Kabul, but they already started public execution in other provinces where a lot of media is not available or covering it,” the interpreter said.

Meanwhile, more than 100 Americans looking to escape Afghanistan remain left behind after US forces left. On Tuesday, the State Department issued a level four travel advisory.

“Do not travel to Afghanistan due to civil unrest, armed conflict, crime, terrorism, kidnapping, and Covid-19,” the State Department said in a tweet. “Travel to all areas of Afghanistan is unsafe.”

Originally published as Women’s rights demonstrators bloodied as Taliban fighters break up Kabul protests