Afghanistan: From the Blade of “American Democracy” to Islamist Beheading

The article was published in Confronti, marzo 2025

The March issue is dedicated to women, the absolute protagonists of these pages. In the opening, Enrico Campofreda interviewed activist Shaqiba of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (Rawa) who denounces the dramatic worsening of women’s conditions under the Taliban regime. The country has become a prison between restrictions, exclusion from education and work, forced marriages and abuse

Activist Shaqiba of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (Rawa) denounces the dramatic worsening of women’s conditions under the Taliban regime. After the first protests were violently repressed, Afghan women are forced to demonstrate in secret, while the country has become a prison between restrictions, exclusion from education and work, forced marriages and abuse.

The current context in Afghanistan, after the return to power of the Taliban in August 2021, is marked by a dramatic regression in women’s rights. Women’s protests, which were vigorous in the first weeks after the regime’s rise, were brutally suppressed with arrests, torture and sexual violence. Although the Taliban regime has tried to make any form of public dissent impossible, many activists continue to fight clandestinely, using social media as a tool for denunciation.

The situation of Afghan women has progressively deteriorated so much that, last February, the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, Karim Khan, announced that he had requested two arrest warrants for the supreme leader of the Taliban, Haibatullah Akhundzada, and the president of the Afghan Supreme Court, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, accused of crimes against humanity for gender persecution.

In this context, we interviewed Shaqiba, an activist of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (Rawa), who recently undertook a tour in Europe to raise public awareness of the dramatic situation of women in Taliban Afghanistan. In Italy, Shaqiba was a guest of the Italian Coordination for the Support of Afghan Women (Cisda), an association that has been fighting alongside Afghan women for over twenty-five years, trying to bring to light the atrocities perpetrated by the Taliban regime and supporting activists who, at the risk of their lives, continue to fight for women’s rights in Afghanistan.

After the combative women’s demonstrations in the first weeks of the second Emirate, are street protests now impossible?
Immediately after the Taliban’s rise to power in August 2021, women from various areas of Afghanistan took to the streets to oppose
Many of them have been arrested, imprisoned, tortured and, in some cases, reports of rape and sexual harassment have been documented. The Taliban have historically used various means to control and impose silence among the people they capture or release.
The strategy of forcing prisoners to sign agreements under threat of death or imprisonment is a common tactic to suppress dissent and maintain control through intimidation. However, these violations are difficult to document, as survivors fear reprisals. Some women have reported crimes while in detention, but repression and threats have pushed many to protest indoors. Protests are moving online, where activists express their dissent against a misogynistic regime. There is no acceptance of the system, we reiterate that the reason activists have reduced street protests is coercion.

What are Afghan women oppressed by today?
Afghanistan has become a prison for women, with increasingly severe restrictions. Unemployment, poverty and psychological pressures lead to an increase in female suicides. Every day, serious crimes such as public executions, femicides, forced marriages and the sale of girls for poverty emerge. Female students – as in the case of Kankor University – are barred from entrance exams, teachers are fired and medical institutions are closed. Women cannot travel without a male chaperone [mahram] and NGOs still present in the territory are forced to give up their female employees. For the past twenty-five years, Afghan women have suffered under the blade of so-called US-backed democracy; now they are beheaded under the guise of Islam.

How has women’s protection deteriorated compared to previous governments?
Before the return of the Taliban, women were already living in precarious conditions. Many districts were under the control of fundamentalists, even though Ashraf Ghani was in government and with US-backed executives. In October 2015, Rukhshana, a young woman from Ghor, was publicly stoned to death for being  “allegedly” ran away from home. At the time, government officials raped dozens of women. Self-immolation, cutting off women’s noses and ears were rampant. In Mazar-e-Sharif, a nine-year-old girl was mistaken for a dog. Many know the tragic story of Farkhunda, who was murdered and burned a few kilometers from the Presidential Palace in March 2015. Violence, including suicide, mutilation and forced marriages, was widespread, while the media claimed that women’s conditions were improving. It is true that the Afghan Constitution at the time provided for gender equality and that the Law on the Elimination of Violence against Women is a state law, but this law remained just a piece of paper unenforced and unused in the courts. All this happened because several jihadists [warlords like Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, Karim Khalili, Abdul Rashid Dostum] were part of the Karzai and Ghani governments. Their fundamentalism was given a false democratic face by the US policy. Corruption and the presence of jihadists in power worsened the situation, culminating in the collapse of the government and the return of the Taliban regime, which eliminated the few remaining freedoms. Widows and divorced women now face the same fate as other Afghans. Women who were previously separated from their husbands have been forced to return home and the Taliban courts issue sentences based on Shari’a.

WOMEN WERE ALREADY IN A PRECARIOUS SITUATION, BUT NOW AFGHANISTAN HAS BECOME A BIG PRISON FOR WOMEN.

What can the Rawa network do?
Rawa continues to be active in the political, social and humanitarian fields. It now operates underground and mostly organizes home-based classes in literacy, English, science and mathematics for school-age girls and illiterate women. It also runs children’s homes in remote areas and provides medical care through a mobile team that responds to crises such as earthquakes, floods and other disasters. Its humanitarian activities also include distributing food parcels to poor families and the unemployed during emergencies. Its main goal is to raise political awareness among women and youth, mobilizing and organizing them. It coordinates protests against the Taliban regime by commemorating anniversaries such as March 8 or the martyrdom of Meena Keshwar Kamal [founder of Rawa who was assassinated in November 1987]. Through its magazine and website, it disseminates news on the internal situation, publishes analytical articles on the role of the United States in supporting fundamentalism and reports on the activities of its members around the world. To ensure the safety of the activists, the initiatives are publicized discreetly.

Can Rawa activists still act within the country or are they forced to live abroad?
Activists can move to different areas of the country, but they must pay great attention to security to avoid being identified and arrested. Despite the difficulties, Rawa has chosen to remain in Afghanistan, alongside those who have lost everything. Leaving the country and living abroad would be the easiest option, but our commitment is to be a point of reference for the population, contributing to raising awareness and fighting for a better future.

Why have many intellectuals and young people left the country and not chosen the resistance?
Many intellectuals and educated people, who had worked in important institutions during the twenty years of US-backed governments, were subsequently evacuated after the Taliban reconquered Kabul. However, they did not think about the resistance, lacking a sense of responsibility and patriotism. Many young people, driven by the lack of work, have left Afghanistan and continue to do so, with several families sending members abroad to support relatives there with remittances. But the choice to stay in Afghanistan and fight is not limited to gender or age. We have seen that many women have rebelled and fought against the Taliban government more than men. In the risky circumstances of protests, men are easily identifiable, they cannot hide behind the burqa… If arrested, they are more likely to risk torture. And this is the reason why some male protests remain virtual, using social media.

Is the growing precariousness also due to the decline in external support and the intensification of the crisis in the Middle East?
Over the last twenty years of NATO occupation, huge funds have arrived in Afghanistan, but instead of being allocated to structural projects such as infrastructure and lasting transformations, they have been wasted on corruption and political theft. Traitors like Abd al-Rasul Sayyaf, Yunus Qanuni, Muhammad Mohaqiq, Karim Khalili and members of the Northern Alliance who were at the