KABUL: Taliban forces fired shots into the air on Thursday to disperse a women’s rally supporting protests in Iran over the death of a woman in the custody of morality police.
Deadly protests have erupted in neighboring Iran for the past two weeks, following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while detained by the Islamic republic’s morality police.
Chanting the same “Women, life, freedom” mantra used in Iran, about 25 Afghan women protested in front of Kabul’s Iranian embassy before being dispersed by Taliban forces firing in the air, an AFP correspondent reported.
Women protesters carried banners that read: “Iran has risen, now it’s our turn!” and “From Kabul to Iran, say no to dictatorship!“
Taliban forces swiftly snatched the banners and tore them in front of the protesters.
Defiant Afghan women’s rights activists have staged sporadic protests in Kabul and some other cities since the Taliban stormed back to power last August.
The protests, banned by the Taliban, contravene a slew of harsh restrictions imposed by the hard-line extremists on Afghan women.
The Taliban have forcefully dispersed women’s rallies in the past, warned journalists against covering them and detained activists helming organization efforts.
An organizer of Thursday’s protest, speaking anonymously, told AFP it was staged “to show our support and solidarity with the people of Iran and the women victims of the Taliban in Afghanistan.”
Since returning to power, the Taliban have banned secondary school education for girls and barred women from many government jobs.
Women have also been ordered to fully cover themselves in public, preferably with the all-encompassing burqa.
So far the Taliban have dismissed international calls to remove the curbs on women, especially the ban on secondary school education.
On Tuesday, a United Nations report denounced the “severe restrictions” and called for them to be reversed.
The international community has insisted that lifting controls on women’s rights is a key condition for recognizing the Taliban government, which no country has so far done.
Taliban fire into air to disperse women’s rally backing Iran protests
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Taliban fire into air to disperse women’s rally backing Iran protests
‘Not your war’: Omani FM on US and Israel undermining ‘active and serious negotiations’
- On Friday, Albusaidi appeared on US news show “Face The Nation” and said a peace deal between Iran and the US was “within our reach”
LONDON: Oman’s Foreign Minister Badr Albusaidi, who was leading indirect negotiations between Iran and the US in Geneva this week, tweeted his dismay at the attacks on Tehran this morning by the US and Israel.
“I am dismayed. Active and serious negotiations have yet again been undermined. Neither the interests of the United States nor the cause of global peace are well served by this,” Albusaidi wrote. “And I pray for the innocents who will suffer. I urge the United States not to get sucked in further. This is not your war.”
On Friday, Albusaidi appeared on US news show “Face The Nation” and said a peace deal between Iran and the US was “within our reach.” He also said, “I don’t think any alternative to diplomacy is going to solve this problem.”
An agreement to irreversibly halt nuclear stockpiling and enrichment was reached, according to Abdusaidi — a feat never before achieved, and one of US President Donald Trump’s most important demands.
“Iran will never, ever have a nuclear material that will create a bomb. This is, I think, a big achievement. This is something that is not in the old deal that was negotiated during President Obama’s time,” the foreign minister said.
“They will not be able to actually accumulate the material that would enable them to create a bomb … So there would be zero accumulation, zero stockpiling and full verification.”
Early on Saturday, the US and Israel launched coordinated military strikes against multiple targets inside Iran, marking a dramatic escalation in Middle East tensions. The operation — described by US officials as “major combat operations” — involved air and missile strikes on key Iranian military and government infrastructure, including areas in and around Tehran.
Trump framed the action as an effort to degrade Iran’s missile and nuclear capabilities and to remove what he described as “an imminent threat” to regional and global security.
