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Women on hunger strike: We will continue until the last breath
Freshta Ghani authored this report for the Zan Times in Persian, and it was translated into English by Rustam Seerat.
Women’s rights activist Tamana Zaryab Paryani was arrested by the Taliban in Kabul in January 2022, along with her sisters. Forced to flee Afghanistan for her safety, she has continued to protest from her new home in Germany. On September 1, she and a group of women put up a tent in the city of Cologne and started a hunger strike, which is now in its 11th day.
The protesters, as well as human rights activists, are demanding that the United Nations and international community recognize that the Taliban have created a system of gender apartheid. They also want the Taliban to release political prisoners, a foreign travel ban on Taliban leaders and for the world to suspend financial aid to the Taliban regime and a travel ban on Taliban leaders. (To date, there has been no official response to the hunger strike from the UN or foreign governments.)
“There is currently a regime of gender apartheid in Afghanistan and the world should recognize it as such,” Tamana Zaryab Paryani told Zan Times on the third day of her hunger strike. “I don’t know what should happen in Afghanistan for the world to open its…
