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Photo: Canadian Media
A year after the Taliban took over Afghanistan, prominent Afghan rights activist Seema Samar is still heartbroken over what has happened in her country.
Samar, a former Minister of Women’s Affairs and the first chair of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, left Kabul for the United States in July 2021, her first visit after the COVID-19 pandemic, not expecting Afghan President Ashraf · Ghani will flee the country the Taliban will take power for the second time after 15 August.
“I think it’s a sad anniversary for most of the people in our country,” Samar said, especially for women who “don’t have enough food and don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow.”
As a visiting scholar at the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard Kennedy School, she wrote the first draft of her autobiography and is working on a policy paper on customary law for women in Afghanistan. She’s also trying to get a green card, but she said, “Honestly, I’m not sure where I’m going, where I am, what I’m doing.”
She wished she could go home – but she couldn’t.
In an interview with The Associated Press on Friday, she recalled a news conference the Taliban held days after they took power, when they said people would be forgiven if they apologized for past behavior.
“I said, I should apologize because I ran schools for the people?” said Samar, a member of Afghanistan’s long-persecuted Hazara minority. “Should I apologize because I opened hospitals and clinics in Afghanistan? Should I apologize for trying to stop the torture of the Taliban? Should I apologize for opposing the death penalty, including (for) the Taliban leaders?”
“I’ve fought my whole life as a doctor,” she said, “so I can’t change and support the death penalty. I shouldn’t apologise and be punished for those human rights principles.”
Samar, a 23-year-old medical student, has become an activist with a young son. In 1984, the then Communist government arrested her radical husband, whom she never saw again. She fled to Pakistan with her young son, worked as a doctor for Afghan refugees and opened several clinics to care for Afghan women and girls.
Samar remembers the Taliban’s rule in the late 1990s, when they largely confined women to their homes, banned television and music, and executed public executions. Months after the 9/11 attacks in 2001, the US-led invasion deposed the Taliban, and al-Qaeda orchestrated attacks from Afghanistan under the umbrella of the Taliban.
After the fall of the Taliban, Samar returned to Afghanistan to hold the top job for women’s rights and human rights, and over the next 20 years, schools and universities were opened for girls, and women entered the workforce and politics and became judges.
But Samar told The Associated Press in April 2021, four months before the Taliban took over the country for the second time, that the gains were fragile and that human rights activists had many enemies in Afghanistan, from militants to militants. And warlords to those who want to stifle criticism or challenge their power.
Samar said the Afghan government and leadership, especially Ghani, bear the primary responsibility for the Taliban sweeping Kabul and seizing power. But she also blamed the Afghans, “because we are very divided.”
In every speech and interview she has given nationally and internationally over the years, she said Afghans must be united and inclusive, “We must have the support of the people. Otherwise, we lose.”
As chair of the Human Rights Commission, she said she has faced repeated criticism for trying to impose Western values ​​on Afghanistan.
“I’ve been saying that human rights are not Western values. As a human being, everyone needs to have a refuge … access to education and health services, access to safety,” she said.
Since taking over, the Taliban have limited girls’ public education to six years, restricted women’s jobs, encouraged them to stay at home and issued a dress code requiring them to cover their faces.
Samar urged international pressure not only to get all girls to school and university, but also to ensure all interrelated human rights. She also highlighted the importance of education for young boys who have no education, jobs or skills and may be at risk of being involved in opium production, arms smuggling or violence.
She also urged the international community to continue humanitarian programmes vital to saving lives, but said they should focus on food-for-work or food-for-work to end people’s total dependence and give them “confidence and dignity”. “
Samar said Afghan society has changed over the past two decades, with access to more technology, rising education levels for young people, and some experience with elections, even if they were not free and fair.
Such achievements open up the possibility of positive change in the future, she said. “These are issues beyond their (Taliban) control,” she said. “They want to, but they can’t.”
Samar said she hoped that there would eventually be accountability and justice for war crimes and crimes against humanity. “Otherwise, we are feeling a culture of impunity everywhere – the Russian invasion of Ukraine is a repeat of the Afghan case,” she said.
Her hope for Afghan women is that they can “live with dignity and not become slaves to the people”.
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