The Taliban reportedly barred women journalists from attending a press event of visiting foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in India, drawing anger from a wide section of Indian reporters, activists, and politicians.
The women journalists, including this reporter for The Independent, who had gathered outside the Afghanistan embassy in Delhi on Friday, were stopped by the security staff and Delhi Police officials from attending the event despite multiple requests.
India is hosting the Taliban’s interim foreign minister during a high-profile but controversial visit as it seeks to upgrade its diplomatic ties with Afghanistan’s hardline Islamist regime. Mr Muttaqi, a UN-sanctioned official, addressed a male-only gathering of press at Afghanistan’s embassy in the lush diplomatic enclave in the heart of the Indian capital.
Following the withdrawal of US-led Nato forces from war-torn Afghanistan four years ago, India was forced to operate the embassy in New Delhi in a restricted manner as it has not formally recognised the Taliban group. The embassy was reopened for the first-ever diplomatic visit by the Taliban minister on Thursday.
Following a social media backlash, India’s Ministry of External Affairs claimed on Saturday it was not involved in the press event held on Friday by the visiting Afghanistan minister.
The women present at the embassy had adhered to the conservative dress code imposed by the Taliban in Afghanistan and many were seen with scarves covering their hair.
The Taliban’s enforcement of Sharia rule in Afghanistan has been the main roadblock to their international recognition. Their restrictions on women and girls and freedom of expression have drawn criticism from rights groups and foreign governments since the former insurgents resumed control of Afghanistan in 2021.
On Friday, in response to a question on the Taliban curtailing the rights of Afghan girls and women, Mr Muttaqi claimed it was “all part of a propaganda”.
Women in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan are currently barred from most of the ordinary activities their counterparts elsewhere in the world see as their natural right – studying, working, going to a salon or the gym, midwifery, and even speaking or praying in public.
A female cat has more rights than a woman in Afghanistan, Hollywood star Meryl Streep said last September, speaking at an event on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.
Experts monitoring the Taliban’s activities have questioned the Indian government’s stance on the incident.
“Despite the Ministry of External Affairs’ claim of ‘no involvement’ in the Taliban Afghan foreign minister’s press interaction, concerns persist about the Taliban’s activities on Indian soil,” said author and journalist Nayanima Basu.
“The Afghan embassy had been inactive since the departure of former diplomats, yet it suddenly became operational within 24 hours of the new foreign minister’s arrival in India. This raises questions about the embassy’s status and the government’s role in permitting the Taliban’s activities,” Basu said.
“…Has India’s relationship with the new Afghan dispensation become so close that it will no longer verify the Taliban’s activities within India’s capital city or anywhere else?” she told The Independent.
The implicit ban on women covering Mr Muttaqi’s press conference in Delhi has also sparked outrage among the Indian opposition.
“Prime Minister @narendramodi ji, please clarify your position on the removal of female journalists from the press conference of the representative of the Taliban on his visit to India. If your recognition of women’s rights isn’t just convenient posturing from one election to the other, then how has this insult to some of India’s most competent women been allowed in our country, a country whose women are its backbone and its pride,” said senior Congress politician Priyanka Gandhi.
“The government has dishonoured every single Indian woman by allowing Taliban minister to exclude women journalists from the presser. Shameful bunch of spineless hypocrites,” said opposition MP Mahua Moitra.
“Mr Modi, when you allow the exclusion of women journalists from a public forum, you are telling every woman in India that you are too weak to stand up for them. In our country, women have the right to equal participation in every space. Your silence in the face of such discrimination exposes the emptiness of your slogans on Nari Shakti (women’s power),” said leader of opposition Rahul Gandhi.
Indian lawmaker Priyanka Chaturvedi from the regional Shiv Sena UBT party said India should question the Taliban on “humiliating our women journalists”.
“India should take this up, and considering that we have upgraded them to our embassy, we would need to engage with the Taliban government on the backsliding of rights for women,” she said. “Especially when our laws are not being maintained inside the Afghan embassy for them to follow and to humiliate our women journalists,” she told The Independent.
The Taliban has not issued a statement yet on the latest incident.
India upgraded ties with the Taliban administration, giving a boost to the diplomatically isolated group, by announcing it would reopen its embassy in Kabul that was shut after the Taliban seized power in 2021.
The Afghan Taliban administration will also send diplomats to New Delhi, its foreign minister said.
India closed its embassy in Kabul following the withdrawal of US-led NATO forces from war-torn Afghanistan four years ago, though it launched a small mission in 2022 to facilitate trade, medical support and humanitarian aid.
About a dozen countries including China, Russia, Iran, Pakistan and Turkey have embassies operating in Kabul, although Russia is the only country to have formally recognised the Taliban administration, whose members are under UN sanctions including a travel ban and asset freeze.
India’s announcement came during talks in New Delhi between foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and his counterpart, Mr Muttaqi, who is on a six-day visit after getting a temporary exemption on his travel ban.
It was the first such trip to India by a Taliban leader since 2021.
“India will raise its technical mission to a diplomatic mission in Kabul, and our diplomats will also come here,” Mr Muttaqi told reporters on Friday, adding that the aim was for the two countries to slowly return to “normalcy”.
India and Afghanistan have historically had friendly ties.
