Israeli philanthropists help Afghan refugees flee Afghanistan
| Author | LINDA GRADSTEIN |
| Published date | 27 September 2021 |
| Publication title | Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel) |
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Sadid is on the list for emigration from Afghanistan to Canada and was supposed to be on a plane the day that suicide bombers targeted the airport in Kabul in late August, killing dozens of Afghan civilians and 13 American soldiers. Both the US and Canada stopped their evacuations, and Sadid remains stuck in Kabul.
At first Taliban leaders said they had not come back to Kabul to reimpose all of the restrictions on women that they had imposed the first time they were in power in Afghanistan in the 1990s. For example, at first the Taliban said girls can continue to attend school, even universities as long as classes are segregated. But when high schools recently reopened, only boys were told to come to school and most girls stayed home. Elementary age schoolgirls have returned to class, but with strict gender separation.
A similar situation has unfolded with journalists, said Sadid.
"They didn't tell us that Afghan women journalists cannot continue their work but indirectly they barred our activities," she said. A well-known Afghan female journalist was barred from her office, she said, and that was enough to convince most journalists to stay home.
"The Taliban have announced that women can be included in every section of society but their actions are different from what they say," she said. "The Taliban announced a general amnesty, saying there is no danger to government employees or journalists but it is not true."
Mohammed Ali Ahmadi, an Afghan journalist based in Kabul, said he was shot on Saturday evening, September 25 by another passenger in a shared mini-van taxi on his commute home, after telling the passenger – a man whom he described as bearded and in his early thirties – that he was a reporter. He survived but was seriously wounded in the leg.
Afghani-Canadian video journalist Brishkay Ahmed said many women are censoring themselves, afraid of what the Taliban might do.
"The Taliban themselves don't need to force people to act a certain way because people are censoring themselves," she told The Report.
She said she is especially concerned about the number of women now wearing black burqas, the billowing garment that completely covers women's faces and bodies, leaving only a small area that they can see through.
"Black is a color associated with funerals and the only place we've seen it is when...
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