Afghanistan Crisis: Taliban Bans Afghan Women Anchors From Govt News Channel

The Taliban has banned women news anchors from working in government news channel.

Image: ToloNews presenter Beheshta Arghand.

New Delhi: Days after taking over Afghanistan, the Taliban in its first conference announced that Afghan women will be given freedom and will be able to work under 'Islamic laws' as it vowed to respect women's rights. However, reports suggest that the wind of change may not be as friendly as it had appeared from the Taliban side during their first presser.

Taliban banned female news anchors in a government news channel and replaced them with their representatives, as reported by New York Times. Khadija Amin, a prominent anchorwoman on state television, informed the Taliban suspended her and other women employees, indefinitely.

“I am a journalist and I am not allowed to work,” said the 28-year-old Amin. “What will I do next? The next generation will have nothing, everything we have achieved for 20 years will be gone. The Taliban is the Taliban. They have not changed,” she said as reported by the New York Times.

Women Not To Be Discriminated: Taliban Spokesperson

A day earlier, Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid during a press conference had said that now Afghanistan has been liberated. In the previous government, many strict restrictions were imposed on women but this time there will be no discrimination against women.

Mujahid in the press conference had said, "women will be given rights under the norms of Islamic law. Women will have the freedom to work in the health sector and other sectors." 

Women's rights were severely restricted during the Taliban's rule of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. They were banned from studying and working, kept hidden in their homes, and violently assaulted if they were seen in public with their faces uncovered.

A Taliban spokesman said during a Tuesday press conference that the group will protect the rights of women and girls "within the limits of Islam," according to multiple news outlets.

Human rights organizations and the United Nations have reported extensive violations of women's and girls' rights, including female journalists, by Taliban officials. UN Secretary-General António Guterres said he was "particularly concerned by accounts of mounting human rights violations against the women and girls of Afghanistan" in recent days.