Early September 2022 saw protests in eastern Paktia province, prompted by the Taliban’s re-closure of girls’ schools after local elders had decided to reopen them. Five schools had reportedly reopened in the province in early September after consultations between local elders, teachers and parents. Taliban officials clamped down quickly, closing the schools again on 10th September.

Several of the affected girls and their teachers reportedly held a protest after being sent home from school. They rallied in Ghazni city, the provincial capital, but the gathering was dispersed by Taliban soldiers firing warning shots in the air. The Taliban also warned local journalists not to cover the protest.

Various posts on social media at the time suggested that Afghans in other parts of the country supported the Paktia elders’ decision to reopen schools and wanted the same thing to happen in their areas.

Rallies in solidarity with Iranian women

On 29th September 2022, Afghan women held a rally outside the Iranian embassy in the capital Kabul in solidary with protests taking place in neighbouring Iran. The death of a young woman at the hands of the Iranian morality police in mid-September for not wearing her hijab ‘correctly’ had sparked a wave of countrywide demonstrations in Iran.

Afghan women used the same chants of “Women, Life, Liberty” at their Kabul protest, and the Iranian rallies may have given Afghan women’s groups extra momentum to continue their struggle. Taliban security forces snatched and tore the banners before firing in the air to disperse the rally.

While there are clear parallels between the Iranian and Afghan protests, one key difference is that Afghan men have remained largely absent whereas Iranian protests have seen widespread participation of both men and women.

Surge of protests following attack on ethnic minority girls 

A suicide attack on an education centre in Kabul that largely catered to Hazara students killed 53 people on 30th September 2022, most of whom were Hazara girls practising for their university entrance exams. The attack took place in an area that has seen repeated targeting by Islamic State-Khorasan Province. Despite this track record of attacks, the Taliban has not taken prevention seriously. The deaths caused a wave of rallies around Afghanistan - and indeed across the world - demanding protection for the Hazara community and more broadly for all Afghan children to be able to access education without fear of attack.

The geographical spread of protest activity prompted by the Kaaj bombing was unprecedented in the post-August 2021 context. Multiple protests were reported in Kabul in the days after the attack, while demonstrations were also reported in the provinces of Herat, Mazar-e Sharif, Paktia, Bamiyan, Kapisa, Daykundi and Nangarhar.

As with all anti-Taliban demonstrations since August 2021, the rallies were met with a violent response from the de facto authorities. Even the surviving classmates of those killed were targeted with violence after they gathered the day after the bombing to mourn their friends. When a group of Kaaj students marched on 1st October from the Pol-e-Sokhta district to the Mohammad Ali Jinnah hospital in the west of the capital, Taliban soldiers beat them with batons andfired live bullets in the air.

In another rally, around 100 women reportedly marched in the western city of Herat on 2nd October chanting “Education is our right, genocide is a crime”. The Taliban beat participants with sticks and fired in the air to disperse them; one woman claimed a Taliban soldier grabbed her hijab and her hair and pushed her to the ground. Another said: “The Talib sprayed pepper spray in our eyes, whipped us and humiliated us by calling us prostitutes who take money from the west to protest”. A group of female university students wanted to join the Herat rally but were prevented from doing so by Taliban soldiers, who locked them inside a university building and threatened them with a pistol.

Protests calling for access to education and employment

The increased frequency of protests held by women demanding their rights to education, employment and other fundamental rights continued throughout October. On 29th October, a group of women rallied near the Malika Suraya High School in theTaimani area of Kabul, calling for girls’ schools to reopen. There were reports of a similar protest the same day in the Macroriyan area. On 30th October women were reportedly beaten and whipped outside a university in Badakhshan where they had been refused entry for not wearing the burqa; they were all wearing the hijab. Female students not wearing a burqa were barred from entry but refused to go home and eventually gained access to their classes. As one of them said: "We are not the generation to be silent. We will raise our voices to receive our rights."

The following day a group of women professionals who had been kicked out of their jobs when the Taliban seized power rallied in a park in the Shar-e Naw district of Kabul. They attempted to hold a peaceful rally during which they displayed their educational and professional certificates, but Taliban soldiers destroyed many of these documents and forced the women to leave the area.

Arrest and punishment of women protesters and their families

Dozens of women have now been detained since the Taliban takeover for exercising their right to peaceful public assembly. Some have been held for a matter of hours and others for many weeks. In one recent case, women’s human rights defender (WHRD) Zarifa Yaqobi and four of her colleagues were reportedly detained by Taliban intelligence agents on 3rd November 2022 in western Kabul. Yaqobi had been involved in women’s protests and was apparently taking part in a press conference where a new women’s organisation was being launched at the time of her arrest. Local reports suggest that at least three journalists attending the gathering were also detained alongside the WHRDs.

On 8th November 2022, prominent young activist Farhat Popalzai was arrested by the Taliban according to reports by the Afghan news agency Jaama Press. She is one of the founders of the ‘Spontaneous Movement of Afghan Women’. On 13th November 2022, another woman human rights defender, Humaira Yusuf, was taken into custody by the Taliban as per information from sources to Amnesty International.

On 20th October 2022, Human Rights Watch published a report detailing testimonies from women protesters who had been detained by the Taliban for their peaceful activism. The findings fit the patterns of abuse discussed in previous CIVCUS updates in which women protesters were subject to incommunicado detention in atrocious conditions, beaten, threatened and insulted, all for exercising their fundamental right to peaceful assembly. The latest HRW report provides extensive detail about the experiences of three women who were arrested from a safe house in February 2022 and detained for several weeks. They were detained alongside their children and husbands; the husbands received even worse treatment, being subjected to electric shocks and extensive beatings.

Protests in areas affected by armed resistance to the de facto authorities

Recent months have seen a surge in armed resistance to the de facto authorities. Taliban violence against local communities in affected areas has also sparked demonstrations. In one example, in early September 2022 a group of women protested in Panjshir against forced evictions of local communities. The women also complained about detentions, torture and harassment of local villagers after the Taliban had lost men in resistance attacks. In a second case, local residents in Nuristan province rallied on 29th September after the Taliban allegedly killed a popular local leader for reportedly forcing Taliban soldiers out of two districts and taking control of administrative buildings.

Expression

The Taliban continues to enforce extensive curbs on freedom of expression. Journalists and commentators face multiple layers of restrictions on what is considered acceptable public discourse, while private citizens can be arrested for even mild criticism of the de facto authorities on social media. Most surviving media outlets practise extensive self-censorship to avoid problems with the de facto authorities.

Media outlets banned