Kabul, Dec 19 (EFE).- The Taliban government in Afghanistan has released two women human rights defenders and their family members nearly three months after being detained for protesting the draconian policies of the Islamist regime, activists said on Tuesday.
Neda Parwani and Zholia Parsi were set free on Monday, activist Mina Rafiq told EFE. “I talked with them and their family members.”
The two activists were associated with a rights group called the Spontaneous Movement of Protesting Women in Afghanistan.
The Taliban, Afghanistan’s de facto authorities, had detained them along with two other activists—Parisa Azada and Manizha Seddiqi—between September and November this year from Kabul province, and they were subjected to alleged torture and ill-treatment, according to global rights group Amnesty International.
Rafiq said Parsi’s health was not good when she spoke to her.
Neda Parwani and Zholia Parsi were among four other women rights defenders who were arrested along with some of their family members between September and October.
Since taking control of Kabul in August 2021, the Taliban regime has increasingly curbed the rights of women and girls, prohibiting their political participation and involvement in public life.
The Taliban have drastically curtailed the rights to freedom of expression, association, and peaceful assembly, as well as the rights to equality and non-discrimination.
Dozens of women protesting Taliban policies have been forcibly disappeared, arbitrarily arrested, and detained and tortured in custody, according to rights activists.
Despite facing arrests, women have held peaceful protests against the Taliban in various Afghan cities, including Kabul, Faizabad, Herat, and Mazar-i-Sharif, inviting the ire of the Islamists.
The Taliban have also followed women post-protests to arrest them. Several women have been arrested at gunpoint in their homes or in safe houses, often violently, Amnesty said in a statement earlier this month.
“Women arrested have been detained incommunicado and repeatedly subject to torture or other forms of ill-treatment.”
Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur in Afghanistan, welcomed the release of Parwani and Parsi and their family members.
“They should never have been imprisoned. I continue to urge the immediate release of Afghanistan HRDs, NGO workers, journalists, and others who are arbitrarily detained for standing up for human rights,” Bennet wrote on the social media app X, formerly Twitter. EFE
lk-ssk
