Keren Dicker, Chargé d’Affaires at the US Mission to Afghanistan based in Qatar, has called on the Taliban to release Zarifa Yaqoubi and four other activists from the group’s custody in Kabul.
Dicker tweeted today that “the United States will never stop supporting women’s right to live, work and assemble in peace.”
Following the suppression of women’s protests and rallies, the Taliban have arrested Zarifa Yaqobi, a women’s rights activist, and four male attendees from a press conference in West Kabul on Thursday, November 03.
The Office of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and human rights organizations have expressed their concerns about the arrest of these people.
UNAMA has said that the organization has engaged the Taliban on the detainees and emphasized that “all Afghans have a fundamental right to peaceful assembly, freedom of expression and opinion, without fear of intimidation or detention.”
The Taliban have arrested women protesters many times before. So far, the group has not said anything about the detention of the newly arrested activists.
Since their return to power, the Taliban have imposed severe restrictions against women and girls, and these restrictions have caused women to create women’s movements. The Taliban, however, are trying to suppress women’s protest rallies.
