Rahil Ansari Talash was born in Balkh Province. She studied law and political science and began her professional career as a literacy teacher. Starting in 2014, she worked in the private banking sector and then, in 2017, she was recruited as a staff member at the UN-Habitat office in northern Afghanistan, where she worked until 2019. After relocating to Kabul, she joined the Ministry of Communications to work in the Afghan telecom sector.
At the same time, Rahil Talash has consistently been active in social and civic work, including serving as the deputy of the Northern Afghanistan Youth Organization in Balkh.
Following the fall of Kabul in 2021, she was among the first women protesters to take to the streets, raising her voice against the Taliban’s takeover of the country and the widespread violations of women’s rights. As a result of these activities, she was directly threatened and pursued by the Taliban. After moving residence several times for her own security, she was forced to leave Afghanistan on November 4, 2021, and sought refuge in Pakistan.
In Pakistan, she continued her protest activities by organizing and leading more than 50 demonstrations and protest actions against the situation of women and the broader human rights crisis in Afghanistan. In addition, she supported Afghan refugees, including through interpretation, counselling, and emergency assistance.
Talash sought asylum in France earlier this year and now continues her activities from there; this interview was conducted beforehand.
This interview has been edited for style, clarity, and length:
Zan Times: In your own view, who is Rahil Talash?
Rahil Talash: Rahil Talash is a women’s rights defender, a social activist, a member of the leadership board of the Afghan Justice-Seeking Women’s Movement, the head of the Hazara Migrants Organization in Pakistan, a board member of a South Asia–based organization, and an active member of the Afghanistan Peace Dialogue initiative. For the past eight years, I have been engaged in the struggle for justice.
My activism began inside my own home. In my family, girls were not allowed to study. With the support of my mother and without my father’s knowledge, I secretly pursued my education up to third grade. Later, I tried to enroll in literacy courses organized by Dr. Sima Samar but the coordinator initially refused to accept me because I was very young as those classes were intended for adult women who could neither read nor write. However, through persistence and determination, I was eventually able to join and complete three levels of study over the course of 18 months.
It was there that I learned how to read and write. The first sentences I ever wrote were: “Afghanistan is my country. Afghanistan is beautiful. I love Afghanistan.” These words have remained deeply engraved in my mind ever since.
ZT: People know you as one of the Afghan women who protested in Pakistan. How did that movement come into being?
Talsh: After the collapse of Afghanistan and the Taliban’s takeover, I was the sole breadwinner of my family. Until the very day — and the very moment — the Taliban entered Kabul, I was at my workplace at the Ministry of Communications. We were dismissed from the office and told to go home as quickly as possible. In the first 24 hours, I felt like a lifeless body. I did nothing but cry.
The next day, I messaged my colleagues and suggested we return to work. When Niloufar, Diba, Mojgan, and I reached the office gate, we were not allowed to enter. The Taliban treated us with extreme humiliation, saying, “Go back to your homes, shameless women. You come here for immorality. There is no place for immorality here anymore. Get lost.”
We tried to return twice more, but each time we were met with abusive behaviour from the Taliban and forced to go back home. For a while, we were all depressed and exhausted, confined to our houses.
Our salaries were frozen in the banks. I went hungry for a week. I was forced to eat stale, moldy dry bread soaked in water. Even now, it is painful for me to talk about those days.
On September 3, 2021, I and a group of girls organized a street protest together. After several protests on the streets of Kabul, I was being pursued by the Taliban. I kept changing my place of residence and my movements, but I was still being followed. Eventually, I was forced to leave Afghanistan and seek refuge in Pakistan.
The first protest we organized in Pakistan took place on March 8, 2022. Just like in Kabul, these gatherings were spontaneous. With the exchange of just a few messages, we came together and raised our voices. Dozens of protests followed — and they continue to this day.
ZT: Did these protests have a leadership? And where are they held?
Talash: There was no formal leadership. We coordinated through WhatsApp groups, where we consulted with one another and decided on the time and place, then gathered there. Most of these protests took place in Islamabad.
ZT: In total, how many protesters or women are working and active together?
Talash: The number is now large as women came together from several different protest movements in Pakistan. In the early days, the gatherings usually did not exceed 100 people because many of the girls felt unsafe and some women had signed pledges never to raise their voices again as a condition of their release from prison.
ZT: Where does the funding for your protest gatherings come from?
Talash: There is no funding. We all protest at our own personal expense.
ZT: When one person from your group migrates, how do the others feel? Talash: Migration is a bitter and painful experience — one that I have felt with every fiber of my being, and all of us share this same feeling. Each time a protesting woman is forced to leave, the morale of women and girls in Kabul weakens.
I never had a desire to go to another country. Every night, I fall asleep with the hope that the next day a popular uprising will take place and Afghanistan will be freed. Through my social media platforms, I have repeatedly called on people to rise up. I still hold on to the same hope: that a popular uprising will emerge, Afghanistan will be liberated, and we will return home.
ZT: After January 2025, people from your group were arrested and detained by Pakistani police – how did you secure their release and what is your status?
Talash: A large number of asylum seekers were arrested and released either through the payment of money or through intermediaries. Over time, however, the amount of money demanded by Pakistani police increased.
Some of my close friends, Nadia Rezaei, Zahra Mousavi, Elaheh, Azadeh, Fatemeh, Fahimeh Zahed, Shamsia Moradi, and Reza Rahnavard were arrested. Through great effort and by paying money, we managed to secure their release.
After our friends were freed, several of us left the city of Islamabad. We are now living in one of the more remote areas around Islamabad. Since the Pakistani government has reduced the visa extension process to a one-month period, extending our visas has become very difficult. Most of us are living either without valid visas or while waiting again for extensions. We remain here in a state of uncertainty.
ZT: Tell us about the protests inside Afghanistan that you took part in before leaving for Pakistan. Can you share your memories of those gatherings, face to face with the Taliban?
Talash: I have very bitter memories of those protests. We went out into the streets to demand our basic human rights, yet the way people treated us was deeply humiliating though some of our fellow citizens did support us, of course.
We walked for hours on the streets in the scorching heat. Some men would quietly give us water, but some — mostly shopkeepers — shouted insults at us, calling us “whores” and “shameless women,” while telling us to go back home. On the other side was the Taliban’s humiliation and violence.
One day, we were protesting in front of the Ministry of Defence. The Taliban responded with extreme violence. They beat us with electric shock batons and whipped us to force us to disperse. I was chanting slogans when suddenly the butt of a rifle struck my left shoulder with such force that I felt as if it had broken. Then an electric shock hit my right elbow and I became unwell. I dragged myself away and moved into a side alley. They forced us to disperse.
On October 26, we held another protest, walking toward UNAMA. First, the Taliban beat the journalists who had arrived, forcing them to flee. Then they surrounded us at Massoud Square. That day, I truly felt it might be the last day of my life. I wanted to call my mother and say goodbye: “Mother, farewell, I’m going.” But they would not allow us to even hold our phones.
That day, they had a list with the names of the protesting women, including even our home addresses. As they read out the list, I recognized the sixth name. It was mine. With great difficulty, we managed to escape and make our way home.
During another protest in Dasht-e-Barchi, we marched from Pul-e-Khoshk toward Shahid Mazari Square. They began whipping us. In Police District 13, they blocked our path. I was beaten with lashes. We barely managed to get home.
ZT: You mentioned that you have established an organization to support Hazara migrants. Tell us more about it?
Talash: The Hazara Migrants Organization was founded in 2022 by Baqer Mellat Yar. After some time, because people came to trust me and saw that I was working honestly and sincerely for migrants, I was introduced as the head of this organization — a responsibility I continue to hold today. The goal of this organization is to support and serve Hazara asylum seekers living in Pakistan.
ZT: In your view, what difference exists between Hazara migrants and non-Hazara migrants?
Talash: As a Hazara woman myself, I have felt the pain of being Hazara in every part of my being for many years. Simply for being Hazara, I was forced to forget my mother tongue. My friends were tortured in Taliban prisons solely because they were Hazara. I believe that Hazara women and girls have carried two layers of pain throughout history: first, being women; and second, being Hazara women or girls.
I have repeatedly witnessed discrimination against Hazaras with my own eyes — inside United Nations offices in Pakistan, at embassies, and throughout asylum case processes and other settings. Therefore, I feel there is a significant difference between Hazara and non-Hazara asylum seekers. This distinction may not matter much to the Pakistani government, but within the processes of human rights organizations, I have seen and personally witnessed bias and discrimination.
Khadija Haidary is a Zan Times journalist and editor.
