Afghans brace for return of Taliban’s brutal rule

Across Afghanistan, millions of women and girls and men fear the fate that awaits them after the last coalition troops leave.

A security checkpoint in Kabul this week. Picture: AFP

In a district just outside Afghanistan’s western city of Herat this month, a burka-cloaked woman screamed in pain as she was flogged in the dirt inside a large circle of men for the alleged crime of adultery.

If not for the dozens of people holding camera phones aloft to capture her agony, the video — which has sparked outrage among Afghans on social media — could just as easily have been taken two decades ago, before the Taliban’s last brutal and arcane Islamic rule was overthrown.

Across Afghanistan, millions of women and girls and men fear the fate that awaits them after the last US and NATO troops withdraw from the strife-torn country on September 11.

“It shows the Taliban have not changed at all and that Afghanistan’s changing society means nothing to them,” Ahmad Shuja, the country’s National Security Council director-general of regional co-operation, told The Weekend Australian of the video that went viral this week.

“What matters to them is their subscription to what they believe to be Islamic precepts. And their definition of Islamic precepts has not changed since 2001.”

Fawzia Koofi, an Afghan politician and one of only four women (out of 21 government negotiators) participating in peace talks between Kabul and the Taliban, says the US troop withdrawal jeopardises those peace talks and the safety of millions of women and girls.

“What we had hoped was the withdrawal would happen when there was political agreement between the government and Taliban,” she says. “Then the withdrawal would have been safe for the US and allies, but now the Taliban know it will be on September 11 they already feel victorious because they feel they will win militarily and politically. If women are not safe, in general the country will not be stable.”

Like many, Ms Koofi believes the Trump administration’s February 2020 Doha agreement with the Taliban left Kabul with little leverage and the insurgents with no incentive to negotiate a post-US withdrawal power-sharing deal.

In just 14 months since the US struck its deal with the Taliban — to withdraw from Afghanistan on condition the Taliban reduce violent attacks, split with al-Qa’ida and make progress towards a peace settlement — she says 400 professional women have been killed in targeted assassinations. Ms Koofi was also targeted last August, shot in the arm by would-be assassins while returning from northern Parwan province. She turned up to peace talks days later with her arm in a cast.

“We know women’s rights activists, judges, journalists, professional women are being targeted. Post-withdrawal, when institutions become weak, the fear is the collapse of those institutions will result in even more chaos and a deteriorating security situation,” she told The Weekend Australian.

“We know how the Taliban treated women while they were in power so we have asked for a 30 per cent quota for women in all of the peace talks.”

The Taliban have backed out of the next round of peace talks scheduled for April 24 in Turkey, and have warned of even more ­violence unless the US adheres to the Trump administration’s May 1 withdrawal date.

Mariam Alimi is not sticking around for that, and is now in Istanbul trying to secure a residency visa for when the last Western troops pull out.

The 41-year-old photojournalist says she is far from alone, and that many friends are in Istanbul doing the same thing.

“I just decided I needed to be able to move somewhere else in case the situation gets worse,” Ms Alimi said.

“We have to think like this now, two steps ahead.”

Ms Alimi says she too worries about the lack of women involved in the peace process and about who will stand up and ask: “Why do I have to sacrifice and suffer from all the plans you’re making for me?”

Sima Samar, a veteran rights defender and Afghanistan’s human rights minister until last December when — inexplicably — the ministry was dissolved, says that after two decades of struggle for recognition and basic rights, Afghan women must start that battle all over again.

Dr Samar says many Afghans were shocked at America’s failure to honour its commitment to a conditions-based withdrawal and the best they can hope for now is that international stakeholders in the peace talks — particularly the US, China, Russia, Pakistan and Iran — apply enough pressure on the Taliban that it agree to a peace settlement before September.

“There is no doubt we have made a lot of progress, compared to the Taliban and Mujaheddin time, even though it’s not complete. We will just continue our fight — if they don’t kill us first,” she says with a wry laugh. “What choice do we have? We should not allow everything to fall.”