Afghan women have staged an angry protest in Kabul against the international community’s dealings with the Taliban.
The protestors, calling themselves the Afghan Women’s Political Participation Network, were outraged by the Norwegian government’s decision to host Taliban officials in the capital, Oslo.
A delegation led by the acting Taliban Foreign Minister, Amir Khan Mataqi was invited to attend a meeting in Oslo to discuss Afghanistan’s future.
The protesters said it was the third time that Norway had “laid out the red carpet” for what they called “this terrorist group”.
They asserted the Taliban were still on a United Nation’s blacklist so should not be allowed to travel. Yet they were freely travelling to some countries and meeting their officials.
According to the protest group, the Taliban have brought nothing but pain and suffering to Afghans during their rule, banning women from working, barring female students from schools and universities and aggravating poverty, unemployment, and forced migration.
Forced marriages of underage girls and the mysterious murders and suicides of women and girls have greatly increased.
They accuse the Taliban of fuelling proxy wars and carrying out serial killings throughout Afghanistan, while imposing severe censorship on media.
They claim the Taliban had looted people’s property, put Afghanistan’s treasury in the hands of terrorists and started looting the country’s minerals.
The protesting women say that the group has forced many Afghan people to migrate and grabbed their houses, lands, and property, and they are moving Pakistani nomads into the homes of Afghan people.
They believe that the Taliban have forced a large number of citizens to leave the country by creating terror.
According to them, corruption and bribery in the country’s administrations have greatly increased, along with arbitrary arrest and torture of women protestors, civil activists, journalists and artists.
The members of the Afghan Women’s Political Participation Network reject any interaction, meeting or dialogue between the representatives of countries or international organizations with the Taliban group.
