This story first appeared in Zan Times
By Freshta Ghani and Soha Azizi
Until nine months ago, Nisa Rahimi* had what she calls a normal life, including a career in a private company. But after the Taliban took over Afghanistan and began imposing restrictions on women and girls, the 23-year-old felt she had no choice but to go out to the streets. Nisa joined a group of women protesters through social media, and then, she participated in her first ever demonstration, shouting the now-famous motto “Work, Food, Freedom” (for her security, she did not share the exact date of the demonstration).
For Nisa, that first protest ended with her under arrest. “When our demonstration began from the roundabouts of Emergency’s hospital in Kabul, Taliban soldiers started shooting in the air,” Nisa tells Zan Times. “The whole crowd dispersed. Only four of us remained. It was me, two Hazara girls, and one Pashtun girl. All of us were arrested.”
Nisa believes her lack of experience at such protests hindered any chance of escape. The women were taken to the Ministry of Interior Affairs where their phones were taken away. “There was a woman who treated us violently. She slapped me hard and asked me who our leader was and how we were funded,” recounts Nisa to Zan Times.
Nisa and other arrested women repeatedly told Taliban interrogators that they had not received money from anyone. During Nisa’s detainment, the Taliban called her father and employer, asking them who and which countries were supporting Nisa. Finally, they told Nisa’s father to pick her up. The Taliban asked him to bring a community elder (county counsellor) who also acted as a guarantor, adding to the pressure on Nisa’s family that she not cross the Taliban again.
“Only after erasing the photos and documents from my phone, and forcing me to sign a statement, and having the county counsellor to bail me out, did the Taliban release me,” says Nisa. Since then, Nisa’s family has forbidden her to participate in any demonstration.
Nevertheless, Nisa has managed to join a number of other demonstrations, with the help of her mother, “In our family, only my mother knows that I participate in demonstrations,” she says. “Every time I go to demonstrations, my mother tells my father and other members of the family that she has sent me somewhere. We are women and we suffer the same pain. That is why my mother understands me.”
Nisa is one of many women arrested, detained or beaten by the Taliban for taking part in a peaceful protest. In a report published on October 20, 2022, Human Rights Watch detailed how the Taliban group has violently suppressed women’s protests in an effort to silence the widespread women’s protest movement in Afghanistan. An investigative report published on October 9, 2022 by Zan Times also shows how the Taliban has systematically arrested, tortured, and even killed women protesters.
In a recent case, the Taliban arrested Zarifa Yaqoubi, a women’s rights activist, along with four of her male colleagues during a news conference on November 3, 2022. Since then, no news of their fate has been made public.
In addition to the fear of how women protesters will be treated by the Taliban, women have to face their families, too. Six women protesters interviewed by Zan Times say that their families have prevented them from participating in demonstrations. Some say their relations have imprisoned them at home.
“For two weeks I have been imprisoned in my house and cannot participate in any demonstration because my family won’t allow me,” Farzana* tells Zan Times in a phone interview. Until her family stopped her, Farzana, a law and political science student at a private university in Kabul, had participated in recent demonstrations.
Farzana’s family imprisoned her at home after she narrowly avoided being arrested after she and her friends participated in a demonstration against the Hazara genocide in Afghanistan. “A bunch of Taliban soldiers were following me in the streets. I was scared they would find out where I lived, so I went to a relative’s house that night and went home the next morning,” says Farzana.
“After I went to my own house, the Taliban had searched the house that hosted me that night and asked for me: ‘Where is that indecent girl? We have her arrest warrant.’” The house owner denied any relationship with Farzana, but after the Taliban had left, he called Farzana’s father and complained that she had caused trouble for them.
After her father hung up the phone, he beat Farzana. “My father said that I was grounded and can never leave the house again. I am still imprisoned at home,” she says. However, she continues participating in protests via social media through the internet packages that her friends activate for her.
Homaira*, 42, holds a master’s degree in economics. She had been working at the finance department of a government organization until August of 2021, when the Taliban ordered the mother of three to go home. After two months of being excluded from work, she decided to protest for her rights in the streets. “I wasn’t feeling well at all. I wept every day. I had lost my job. I wasn’t the independent woman who earned her own wages and provided whatever she wanted for herself and her children. It felt humiliating to ask my husband for 50 afghanis,” Homaira says to Zan Times. “I found out that women were forming a huge protest movement. I joined them.”
“The hatred we had in our heart towards Taliban’s actions gave us the drive for demonstrations. Having worked and lived as an independent woman for a decade and a half, I couldn’t convince myself to accept the restrictions and limitations imposed by the Taliban,” she explains.
Like Nisa, Homaira was arrested at a demonstration. Homaira’s husband bailed her out of the prison, pledging to the Taliban that she would not participate in any future demonstration. Once released, Homaira says that she couldn’t stand staying home and she felt the urge to continue her protests, but her husband wouldn’t let her. “My husband threatened to divorce me and take my children away from me if I went to the demonstrations,” recalls Homaira.
“My husband has an eye on me constantly,” she adds. “This is why I have not been able to participate in any demonstrations recently. I cannot leave my children to my husband in these difficult times.”
*Names have been changed to protect the identity of the interviewees.