“I think it’s a sad anniversary for the majority of people of my country.” A year after the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, prominent Afghan rights activist Sima Samar says she is still heartbroken over what happened.
In an interview Friday with The Associated Press, she recalled a Taliban news conference a few days after they took power when they said if people apologized for past actions they would be forgiven.
Samar became an activist as a 23-year-old medical student with an infant son. In 1984, the then-communist government arrested her activist husband, and she never saw him again. She fled to Pakistan with her young son and worked as a doctor for Afghan refugees and started several clinics to care for Afghan women and girls.
In every speech and interview she gave nationally and internationally over the years, she said Afghans had to be united and inclusive, and “we have to have the people’s support. Otherwise, we will lose.” Since their takeover, the Taliban have limited girls’ public education to just six years, restricted women’s work, encouraged them to stay at home, and issued dress codes requiring them to cover their faces.Samar urged international pressure not only to allow all girls to attend secondary school and university, but to ensure all human rights which are interlinked.
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