In the past weeks, students participated in university entrance exams with dreams of pursuing careers in science, engineering, management, art, journalism, and …
Then, during the test itself, women discovered they could no longer study any field that the Taliban deemed inappropriate. In their ideal society, in which women are invisible in public life, there is no need for women scientists, engineers, artists and journalists. By denying women and girls not only the right to education but also the right to choose their careers, the Taliban are gradually and yet meticulously building their gender apartheid. First, they denied teenage girls the right to education. Then, they imposed travel restrictions, forbidding women the right to travel without a male chaperone. Later, they imposed full-face coverings, requiring male guardians to impose the Taliban’s misogynist policies on women.
Banning women from studying journalism sends a clear message: there must be no reporting, no information sharing if the Taliban’s Islamic Emirate is to continue. It’s no surprise that women and the media have been the main targets of Taliban’s repression in the past year. Women journalists have particularly suffered, caught at the intersection of those two oppressions. Like all women in Afghanistan, women journalists cannot move freely. They cannot travel alone; they cannot even take a taxi without a male chaperone. They must not share working space with male colleagues. Their faces must be invisible, especially when they are on television screens.
As well, Taliban has issued at least two regulations aimed directly at journalists, restricting topics on which media can report. Among what journalists cannot do is “criticize” the Taliban or publish any content that the Taliban deem contrary to “Islam” and “Afghan values.” Of course, the definition and parameters of what encompasses Islam and Afghan values is open to the Taliban’s arbitrary interpretations.
We know from experience that the Taliban suppress any information related to women’s rights and women’s demands for their rights. There is a war on women in Afghanistan, and visible women, such as journalists, are the first targets. We are already witnessing the impact of the Taliban’s war. Almost 80 percent of women journalists have lost their jobs — they have been eliminated from 11 provinces and counting. Not having women journalists on the ground means we are missing the full story of what is happening in Afghanistan.
We are in a new era of journalism in Afghanistan, when our craft is practically illegal. The Taliban constantly scrutinize media content. They actively and arbitrarily harass, beat, torture, and imprison journalists and activists who speak up. They have even detained and interrogated several foreign journalists, with whom the Taliban are often more courteous. One alarming issue is that the Taliban torture journalists to give up their sources. It is a chilling (and effective) way to silence people so that they think twice before daring to speak with journalists.
However, we women journalists have a responsibility to ensure that our voices are not silenced. The Taliban wants us to be on the run. They want a society that is colourless, grim, and black and white like their flag. It is our responsibility to raise the flag of diversity, plurality, and hope for a better future. We are not powerless. Our power is in our voice, in the way we continue to report on our communities and what we tell the world. Our voices are a weapon with which we stand against the brutality of the Taliban and document our history in the way we experience it.
Taliban’s suppression of information is designed to keep society both uninformed and intellectually paralyzed. To achieve that goal, the Taliban will continue to use all their social, political and military sources against us. We must find and create new ways to resist their oppression. We must ensure that the voices of brave people who are willing to share their story, are not silenced. We must talk, write, sing, and paint our way to freedom and liberty.
It is our responsibility to ensure the Taliban never succeeds. Earlier this year, we women journalists pledged to build Zan Times into an institution of learning with the capacity to train a new generation of women journalists. We will succeed. The Taliban will fail.
