OUTRAGE & HUMAN RIGHT ABUSE!
Taliban fighters point gun, capture Afghan’s first Female Governor, SALIMA MAZARI
…taken to a hideout, whereabouts unknown, women group fear torture and execution
* Afghanistan’s biggest female pop star, Aryana Sayeed escape on US cargo jet
* Taliban vow to impose strict Sharia law
* ‘Religious scholars will decide whether girls can go to school and women can work. No way democratic system of government would remain, it is not compatible with Islamic law’ -TALIBAN spokesman Waheedullah Hashimi
* BY MOHAMMAD RILWAN/REPORTER, inside Afghan
THE SITUATION in Afghanistan is lawless, tensed and can be likened to a war zone going by the take-over of the nation by Sharia-driven, blood-thirsty militants in the notorious name of Taliban who have now taken over Afghan’s Presidential Palace. At the moment, gun-wielding, fierce-looking Taliban fighters have rounded-up, apprehended the first female governor in the nation, Salima Mazari. This outspoken woman was threatened, captured under the cover of darkness, and taken to unknown hideout. There are fears in a segment of the Afghan community that the politician may have been executed, as her fate hang in the balance. By sheer fate, Afghanistan’s biggest female pop star, Aryana Sayeed escape on US cargo jet few days ago.
Sayeed, a singer and judge on the Afghan version of ‘The Voic’e, was fortunate to have escaped the country on a US cargo jet on Wednesday out of Kabul, fears grow for women in the country after the Taliban’s vow to impose strict Sharia law. There are also daily fears for a captured female governor formerly one of Afghanistan’s most prominent female politicians, whose supporters say she could be executed.
And the Taliban now says that religious scholars will decide whether girls can go to school and women can work, after the new regime earlier said the would respect women’s rights ‘within the framework of Islamic law.. ‘I am well and alive and after a couple of unforgettable nights, I have reached Doha, Qatar and am awaiting my eventual flight back home to Istanbul,’ the 36-year-old told her 1.3 million Instagram followers.
Sayeed later posted an update showing that she had flown onward to Turkey. She said: ‘After I get home and my mind and emotions return back to normal from a world of disbelief and shock, I have many stories to share with you.’ Ms Sayeed has been a prominent supporter of the Afghan Army and spoke out many times in support of them before the Taliban took the country. She is married to Hasib Sayed, who is also her producer.
Mazari was an outspoken critic of the Taliban during her time as governor of the Hazara district and there are fears that the jihadists may execute her. Taliban spokesman Waheedullah Hashimi told Reuters on Wednesday: ‘Our scholars will decide whether girls are allowed to go to school or not.’ He also ruled out any chance that the current democratic system of government would remain, saying that it was not compatible with Islamic law. ‘There will be no democratic system at all because it does not have any base in our country,’ Hashimi said. ‘We will not discuss what type of political system should we apply in Afghanistan because it is clear. It is sharia law and that is it.’
The arrested governor, Mazari, had previously stated that women living under Afghan rule had no life at all. “In the provinces controlled by the Taliban, no women exist there anymore, not even in the cities. They are all imprisoned in their homes,” she said in interview before her region fell to the terrorists. Mazari is a member of the Hazara community, most of whom are Shia Muslims, while the Taliban are Sunnis who consider her’s a heretical sect. The Persian-speaking Hazaras have been regularly targeted in attacks by the Taliban and ISIS, including an attack on a school in May that left 80 girls dead.
Fears over her arrest come as the former captain of the women’s soccer team urged players to delete social media, erase public identities and burn their kits. Copenhagen-based Khalida Popal told Reuters in a video interview on Wednesday that the militants had killed, raped and stoned women in the past and female footballers were scared of what the future might hold.
The co-founder of the Afghan women’s football league said she had always used her voice to encourage young women ‘to stand strong, to be bold, to be visible’ but now she had a different message. ‘Today I’m calling them and telling them, take down their names, remove their identities, take down their photos for their safety. Even I’m telling them to burn down or get rid of your national team uniform,’ she said.
‘And that is painful for me, for someone as an activist who stood up and did everything possible to achieve and earn that identity as a women’s national team player.
‘To earn that badge on the chest, to have the right to play and represent our country, how much we were proud.’ During their 1996-2001 rule, guided by Islamic law, the Taliban stopped women from working. Girls were not allowed to go to school and women had to wear burqas to go out, and then only when accompanied by a male relative. Those who broke the rules sometimes suffered humiliation and public beatings by the Taliban’s religious police.
The Taliban have said they will respect the rights of women within the framework of Islamic law.
However, many experts say that this is simply a sophisticated PR campaign to win legitimacy on the global stage.
Meanwhile, supporters of al-Qaeda and other Islamist groups have been celebrating the rise of the Taliban, sparking new fears that the country will become a breeding ground for terror.
‘Afghanistan is Conquered and Islam has Won,’ a message on a pro-al-Qaeda social media account said on Monday.
It went on to congratulate ‘the brothers’ in the Taliban on their victory.
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