KABUL – The Purple Saturdays Movement, an Afghan women-led resistance group, has condemned the international community for choosing to engage with the Taliban rather than actively oppose their crimes over the past four years.
In a statement on Friday, the underground movement said that diplomatic engagement has, in effect, signaled tacit approval of the regime’s abuses, normalizing its violations of fundamental rights.
Since their takeover four years ago, the Taliban have systematically stripped Afghan girls and women of their freedoms. They have been barred from secondary and higher education, expelled from most jobs, including working for the UN and NGOs, and excluded from public space and civic life.
Despite sporadic public protests, particularly in late 2021 and December 2022 against education bans, the regime responded with brutality, detaining, torturing, and dispersing demonstrators with batons, live fire, and water cannons.
This repression has extended to the Taliban turning prisons into instruments of terror, where protesting women face torture, sexual violence, and even murder. Many remain imprisoned, their identities unrecorded or undisclosed.
“Hundreds of women have been violently arrested from the streets, workplaces, and even their homes,” the movement said. “Dozens have been tortured, sexually abused, and raped in prisons; many continue to live under constant threat and fear.”
The Purple Saturdays is demanding urgent, independent monitoring of Taliban prisons, especially those run by the regime’s intelligence agency, and public recognition of women’s right to protest.
They also advocate for building a coalition to establish a legitimate government through free elections, and appeal to the public to oppose Taliban rule with courage.
