We’ve seen this before
On Tuesday, the Taliban held a news conference in Kabul. Its spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, bent over backward to reassure the international community of the group’s benign intentions. He promised an inclusive government, hinted at elections and declared that today’s Taliban has changed considerably since it lost its grip on power 20 years ago.
He insisted that the new Taliban government will protect freedom of speech, human rights and women’s rights—within the constraints of Islamic law, he repeatedly added.
Yet it should be entirely clear what the Taliban has planned. During its previous stint in power, it stunned the world with the harshness of its regime. Floggings, public executions and repression of women were its hallmarks. And during the intervening two decades, it has given numerous examples of the same tendencies. Let us be under no illusion. This is a disaster for women in the region.
Women understand Islamist groups better than most because they suffer the harshest consequences. The Islamist war is first and foremost directed against women. Mujahid’s statements bear an eerie resemblance to the assurances given by Ayatollah Khomeini, the leader of the Islamic Revolution, to the Western press before he came to power in Iran.
In December 1978, before his return from exile, Khomeini said: “Women can choose any kind of attire they like so long as it covers them properly and they have hijab.” A few weeks later, on Jan. 23, 1979, he declared: “We will give women every kind of freedom, but we will prevent moral corruption and, where this is concerned, there is no difference between men and women.”
Aside from mollifying Western observers, Khomeini was probably trying to reassure his liberal allies in the revolution against the Shah, which included a vast number of active and vocal women.
Yet once the Islamists took over for good, the new reality set in. Female judges, including Shirin Ebadi, who later went on to receive the Nobel Peace Prize in 2003, were fired. Female singers were banned, and the authorities forbade a number of athletic activities for women. Most important, compulsory hijab was introduced.
According to the Iranian interpretation of Shariah law, women who resist the compulsory hijab in public are punished with up to 74 lashes. Several women’s rights activists have been sentenced to long prison terms for simply saying no to forced hijab.
On March 8, 1979, on International Women’s Day, more than 100,000 Iranian women marched against Khomeini’s decree imposing compulsory hijab. The new regime put down this massive protest with force. Unfortunately, Afghan women may be facing a fate that is even worse.