The head of US affairs in Afghanistan, Karen Decker, on Saturday urged the Taliban fundamentalist movement to immediately release the five human rights activists arrested Thursday in Kabul.
“The United States will never stop supporting the rights of women to live, work and gather in peace,” Decker wrote on Twitter.
Activist Zarifa Yaqobi was arrested along with her colleagues in the west of the city while trying to organize a group known as the Afghan Women’s Movement.
These five people remain in detention and the UN has requested information from the authorities, according to a spokesman for the High Commissioner for Human Rights, Jeremy Laurence.
I am deeply concerned that young women were mistreated and denied access to their classes in #Badakshan. Women must be able to gain knowledge so that they can benefit their families, their communities and help lift Afghanistan out of poverty. https://t.co/Wh8VShdnwk
– Charge d’Affaires Karen Decker (@USAmbKabul) November 5, 2022
In addition, the Afghan agents held the rest of the women who attended the event for about an hour in the meeting room itself.
During that period of time, they allegedly searched the phones of the participants, according to information released by the United Nations.
Sources quoted by the Jaama Press agency assured that Taliban forces entered the room, located in a mostly Hazara neighborhood in western Kabul.
Historically, both Hazaras and women have been marginalized in Afghanistan, especially with the Taliban in power.
The usual Taliban spokesman and deputy minister of Information of the regime, Zabiulá Muyahid, declared this Saturday that he had no record of Yaqobi’s arrest.
Source: TSF
