On August 17, the New York Times reported that the Taliban has "indefinitely suspended" women employees from state television. The Times attributed the news to Khadija Amin, a "prominent anchorwoman on state television", who reportedly spoke about it during an interaction on Clubhouse.
Amin said, "I am a journalist and I am not allowed to work. What will I do next? The next generation will have nothing, everything we have achieved for 20 years will be gone. The Taliban is the Taliban. They have not changed."
Khadija Amin the new anchor on state TV last week.
— Farnaz Fassihi (@farnazfassihi) August 17, 2021
Taliban taking over her seat as of Monday.
Ms. Amin told us her boss informed her Taliban have banned women from returning to work at state television.#Afghanistan pic.twitter.com/S4BfISKkaG
Simultaneously, photographs went viral on social media: of Beheshta Arghand, a female anchor with the privately-owned Tolo News, interviewing Taliban spokesperson Mawlawi Abdulhaq Hemad.
NIMA WORAZ: #Kabul Situation Discussed [Pashto]
— TOLOnews (@TOLOnews) August 17, 2021
In this program, host Beheshta Arghand interviews Mawlawi Abdulhaq Hemad, a close member of the Taliban’s media team, about Kabul’s situation and house-to-house searches in the city. https://t.co/P11zbvxGQC pic.twitter.com/Pk95F54xGr
Some media houses had lauded the programme as a "rare sign of potential optimism". In a news conference, the Taliban had promised to "honour" women's rights.
Tolo News founder Saad Mohseni told the Guardian: "It’s important for them to win hearts and minds, and show the internationals that they’re legitimate and that they’re folks you can work with. In this phase the media will have a great deal more freedom than in the latter phases."
Meanwhile, Indian independent journalist Kanika Gupta, who was based in Kabul and returned to Delhi on an IAF flight, told NDTV that she saw a "sea change" in Kabul over the last few days.
"Beauty parlours were being painted over, there were no women on the streets. And Kabul has such dynamic, intelligent and fashionable women. It's always great to talk to them," Gupta said. "...The biggest fear over there is among women. They speak of threats like acid attacks if they don't cover themselves up properly. So, there is a lot of trust deficit when the Taliban today talks of no discrimination."
Also Read: ‘It was like in movies, the bad guys come and you run’: Afghan woman recounts her escape to India
Newslaundry is a reader-supported, ad-free, independent news outlet based out of New Delhi. Support their journalism, here.
