By Rukhshana Media
Two weeks after the forced disappearance of six people in connection with the women’s rights protests, two women’s rights activists were abducted in the past 24 hours in Kabul, friends and activists told Rukhshana Media.
Zahra Mohammadi, a dentist, and a women’s rights activist, was abducted from her workplace by the Taliban gunmen at around noon on Thursday, an activist and a close friend of Mohammadi who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Rukhshana Media.
On Wednesday, Mohammadi and her friends, in a group called Unity and Solidarity of Afghanistan women, organized an indoor protest to call for the immediate release of their friends, Tamana Zaryab Paryani and Parwana Ibrahimkhel, who were abducted on January 19 in Kabul.
Soon after their gathering was over, the news of a third women’s rights activist broke in Afghanistan.
A protest organizer who spoke on condition of anonymity told Rukhshana Media that Mursal Ayar, an activist who took part in the recent women’s protest, was abducted from her house on Wednesday.
Ayar’s mother reportedly told a friend of Mursal that 10 Taliban gunmen abducted her from her house.
In less than 24 hours, Mohammadi became the latest victim of the forced disappearance of activists in Kabul.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) asked the Taliban’s Ministry of Interior about the detention and whereabouts of the two women activists abducted in the past 24 hours and reiterated its demand for the release of all “disappeared” women activists and their relatives.
With each passing day, the Taliban further intensifies their clampdown on women’s rights. The group started a string of abduction of womens’ rights activists on January 19, when they raided the houses of several activists and abducted Tamana Zaryab Paryani, her three sisters, and Parwana Ibrahimkhel with a relative.
There is no news on the whereabouts of any of the women activists.
The Taliban spokesmen repeatedly denied arresting the women, but family members, eyewitnesses, and friends confirm that the Taliban is behind the abduction.
On January 24, five days after the Taliban arrested women activists in the Afghan capital, New York-based Human Rights Watch said, the group’s response to the arrests shows they “intent to eradicate critical women’s voices through unlawful use of force.”
In an indoor gathering on December 23, Zahra Mohammadi, the activist abducted on Thursday, warned that if anything happened to any of the protesters, the Taliban would be responsible for it.
“If one of us is killed, no one should say she was killed in a car accident, she was killed by her husband…[everyone] should know that the Islamic Emirate would be responsible for the killing of [any] women who raised their voice,” Mohammadi said in a video of the gathering she shared with Rukhshana Media.
