For the reason that Taliban takeover final 12 months, Afghan ladies and ladies have been demonstrating for his or her proper to schooling and employment. When ladies in Iran took to the streets in anti-regime protests after the dying of Mahsa Amini in police custody, their Afghan sisters instantly started monitoring the scenario throughout the border, hoping for a spillover impact.
Raihana M* was in her lounge within the Afghan capital, Kabul, when she first heard of protests erupting throughout the border in neighbouring Iran following the dying in police custody of Mahsa Amini, who was arrested for allegedly breaching Iran’s strict gown code.
The Afghan social employee noticed footage of the protests in Iran on Manoto TV, a London-based Persian language TV station, and stated she felt an instantaneous, nearly bodily, rush of solidarity for her Iranian sisters.
“I used to be actually shocked and unhappy. As an Afghan, as a lady, I felt solidarity as a result of we’re experiencing the identical factor. Solely it’s worse for girls in Afghanistan,” she defined in a cellphone interview from Kabul.
That was in late September, not lengthy after 22-year-old Amini was declared useless by the Iranian authorities. Raihana then took to social media, watching clips of protests throughout Iranian cities and cities.
Taliban officers then moved in to interrupt up the demonstration, firing into the air and threatening to hit the ladies with their rifle butts.
Afghan ladies started protesting the week after the Taliban seized management of Kabul on August 15, 2021, regardless of the grave threat of confronting a motion of hardline Islamist male fighters.
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