Afghanistan Women Protesters: We Sanction the Doha Meeting, Engagement with the Taliban is Rejected

In the statement of this protest gathering, published on Saturday (June 29), it was stated: "It is clear to everyone that during the three years of Taliban terrorist rule in Afghanistan, forty million innocent and defenseless people of this country, including men, women, and children, have been deprived of their human rights, including the right to freedom of expression, political participation, work, education, and other rights that a human being as a living creature should have."

The statement adds: "Regrettably, the United Nations, by ignoring the oppression and terror imposed by this savage and terrorist group on the people of Afghanistan, has chosen the path of engagement and negotiation with this group. The Taliban are participating in the third Doha meeting thanks to the UN's concessions. The United Nations moves in alignment with the Taliban and supports continued engagement with them."

The statement from these movements says: "Just as the Taliban have excluded women from all areas of political and social life in Afghanistan due to their gender, the United Nations has also excluded women from participating in the third Doha meeting. This gender apartheid imposed on Afghan women by the Taliban, with the complicity of the United Nations, silences the voices of Afghan women."

The statement continues: "Therefore, we protesting women believe that the United Nations has forgotten its primary mission and, through political dealings, is whitewashing the terrorist Taliban and overlooking their violations of human and women's rights."

The Powerful Women of Afghanistan Movement and the Freedmen's Movement in Exile emphasized in this statement that they sanction the third Doha meeting without the presence of representatives of the people and women of Afghanistan and condemn the third Doha conference, which, according to them, seeks to whitewash the "blackened faces of history."

These women's rights activists in the statement strongly condemned the whitewashing and lobbying for the Taliban. These two movements know reject any engagement, invitation, and hosting of the "enemies of the Afghan people" (the Taliban) in the Doha meeting.

This statement is published as the third meeting of special representatives of world countries on Afghan affairs is scheduled to be held today (June 30) in Doha, the capital of Qatar.