The Taliban government celebrates five years of ruling Afghanistan on Saturday, with the authorities hailing their country’s “freedom” and security, while critics decry tightening restrictions in all areas of daily life. Afghans riding rickshaws and motorbikes decorated with flags were driving around Kabul, where new murals declared: “Independence is a sign of dignity, pride and identity”.
Men sell Taliban flags on a Kabul street ahead of celebrations marking the 5th anniversary of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. © Nava Jamshidi, AP
The authorities will host a cricket match and other sports events – which girls and women are banned from attending – while their supporters are expected to gather five years to the day since Taliban insurgents entered the city. They took the capital unopposed after a lightning offensive that swept across Afghanistan, toppling government forces in the wake of the chaotic withdrawal of US-led troops.
Thousands of Afghans desperate to flee after Taliban takeover in 2021
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Some of the vehicles abandoned by foreign forces, such as Humvees, were driven in convoy early Saturday through Kabul, where there was an increase in the number of checkpoints. Economic hardship Beside vendors selling flags earlier this week, university student Pirooz Mirzaie said the government has brought security, infrastructure projects and “plenty of opportunities for entrepreneurs”. “The biggest challenge for young people is that there aren’t many jobs,” the 20-year-old told AFP. “Thank God, the past five years have passed in safety,” Mohammad Qasim, 30, told AP. “Our wish and hope from the government is to create job opportunities for the youth.” “We, along with the entire nation, call upon the government to create employment opportunities for the youth and to encourage them to pursue education,” Qasim added. Zabihullah Mujahid, the government’s chief spokesman, said this month that the authorities were laying the “foundations of the economy” and that patience was needed. Read more’A very different Afghanistan: Violence now linked to socioeconomic pressures’ GDP per capita is in decline, due to more than six million Afghans arriving from neighbouring Iran and Pakistan in three years, while the World Bank estimated real growth reaching 4.8 percent. The most severe women’s rights crisis Women have been particularly affected by Taliban government measures, being banned from public places including parks and from most jobs, while education for girls beyond age 12 is outlawed. A 23-year-old woman said she felt a “profound sense of suffocation”, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity for security reasons. “The five years have been so gruelling that I feel like a 500-year-old woman, one who cannot die.” Before the takeover, the Taliban stated that, upon assuming power, it would allow women access to education, employment and public participation, albeit in accordance with its interpretation of Islamic principles. Soon after it seized power, the Taliban imposed an indefinite ban on girls’ education beyond the sixth grade and, a few months later, also banned higher education for women until “further notice”. Read moreFour years after the fall of Kabul, Taliban succeeds in near-total exclusion of women Mujahid has repeatedly said the Taliban administration is working to establish conditions under which girls and women can attend classrooms or university campuses in line with Islamic Sharia laws. The restrictions, nevertheless, remain in force. In a statement this week, the UN’s agency on women’s rights said Afghan women and girls are living under the world’s most severe restrictions, which not only violate their rights but also threaten the country’s social and economic future. “Half a decade after the Taliban takeover in August 2021, Afghanistan has systematically dismantled the rights of half its population, making it a global outlier with no parallel in the modern world,” UN Women said. “In the past year alone, this exclusion of women and girls from education, employment, public life, justice systems and healthcare has only intensified, entrenching what remains the world’s most severe women’s rights crisis,” it said.
In this file photo, a Taliban fighter stands guard as women wait to receive food rations distributed by a humanitarian aid group in Kabul. © Ebrahim Noroozi, AP
Fazila Soroush, a 39-year-old Kabul-based entrepreneur and an advocate for women’s rights, said the government had “demonstrated its worth to the people through its actions in every area”. “We consider it essential that the officials of the Islamic Emirate who had announced the closure of schools and universities until further notice, now make a clear and practical decision regarding this matter,” she said. ‘Suffocating restrictions’ and diplomatic isolation While the UN has acknowledged that the country has become more stable since the takeover, it has warned that lasting stability cannot be possible unless the Taliban rulers – who remain isolated internationally – lift restrictions on women and girls, protect basic rights and address terrorism concerns. “A reduction in conflict has brought tangible benefits for many Afghans and created opportunities to focus on recovery, development and regional economic cooperation,” the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, or UNAMA, said in a statement ahead of the anniversary. It added, however, that the restrictions on women and girls impede Afghanistan’s recovery and its reintegration with the international community. Although Taliban officials have forged ties with multiple countries, including in Europe, their government is still only recognised by Russia. Read moreFive years on, Afghanistan’s Taliban build foreign ties despite rights concerns Relations with neighbouring Pakistan have plummeted and the two countries went to war this year, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan when people were already hit hard by international aid cuts. Some countries have opted to limit their relations with the Taliban authorities until there are changes in Afghanistan, where people are suffering “very real harm” according to the UN. Fiona Frazer, the human rights director for the UN mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), told AFP that people have endured the “consolidation of suffocating restrictions that intrude on almost every aspect of their daily lives, and their human rights”. The Committee to Protect Journalists criticised the authorities’ “brutal repression of the press” which has seen media workers “surveilled, detained, beaten, censored, or driven into exile”. (FRANCE 24 with AFP and AP)