Afghan women are protesting against Taliban diktat. One photo at a time

Afghan women across the planet have started a web campaign to protest against the strict new code for female students imposed by the Taliban. they’re posting photos of themselves wearing colourful traditional dresses on social media using hashtags like #DoNotTouchMyClothes and #AfghanistanCulture. The campaign started by Dr Bahar Jalali, a former history professor at the American University in Afghanistan, has seen many women posting their photos also as comments against the Taliban rules.

The Taliban have mandated the segregation of genders in classrooms and said women students, teachers and employees must wear hijabs. On Saturday, photos emerged of girls students wearing head-to-toe black robes and waving Taliban flags within the lecture hall of a government-run university in Kabul.

Jalali said she started the campaign “to inform, educate, and dispel the misinformation that’s being propagated by Taliban”. “No woman has ever dressed like this within the history of Afghanistan. this is often utterly foreign and alien to Afghan culture. I posted my pic within the traditional Afghan dress to tell , educate, and dispel the misinformation that’s being propagated by Taliban,” Jalali, a former academician of the American University of Afghanistan consistent with her LinkedIn profile, said.

“This is Afghan culture. i’m wearing a standard Afghan dress,” Jalali tweeted an image of herself during a green Afghan dress.

Other Afghan women responded by posting pictures of themselves in bright and vibrant traditional Afghan dresses from across the country in stark contrast to the black hijab mandate by the Taliban. “I wear my traditional Afghan dress proudly. It’s colourful and delightful . Not in the least just like the images you saw circulating yesterday. many thanks @RoxanaBahar1 who’s encouraging us #AfghanWomen to share the sweetness of #AfghanistanCulture,” Tahmina Aziz tweeted.

Waslat Hasrat-Nazimi, head of the Afghan service at DW News, also posted an image wearing atraditional Afghan dress and headdress. “This is Afghan culture and this is often how Afghan women dress,” she wrote. “Our cultural attire isn’t the dementor outfits the Taliban have women wearing,” Peymana Assad, an area politician within the UK who is originally from Afghanistan, said.

The Taliban, who ruled over Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001 when were forced from power after a US-led invasion, have subjected women to violence and made them to forgo education. The Taliban have now claimed that they might not enforce their old diktats as they recaptured the country’s capital last month. However, their new rules have activists and therefore the world worried about the gains women made within the last 20 years.