A year after the Taliban took over Afghanistan, prominent Afghan rights activist Sima Samar is still devastated by what happened in her country. Samar, a former minister of women’s affairs and the first chairperson of Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission, left Kabul in July 2021 for the United States on her first trip since the COVID-19 pandemic, never expecting that the Afghan President Ashraf Ghani will leave the country. and the Taliban to take power for a second time soon after on August 15. “I think it’s a sad anniversary for the majority of people in my country,” Samar said, especially for women “who don’t have enough food, who don’t know what tomorrow holds for them.” A visiting scholar at the Carr Center for Human Rights at Harvard’s Kennedy School, she has written the first draft of an autobiography and is working on a policy paper on customary law related to Afghan women. She’s also trying to get a Green Card, but she said, “I honestly can’t get my head around where I am and what I’m doing.” He wishes he could go home – but he can’t. In an interview Friday with The Associated Press, she recalled a Taliban press conference days after they took power when they said if people apologized for past actions they would be forgiven. “And I said, should I apologize for starting schools for people?” said Samar, a member of Afghanistan’s long-persecuted Hazara minority. “Should I apologize for starting hospitals and clinics in Afghanistan? Should I apologize for trying to stop Taliban torture? Should I apologize for advocating the death penalty, including for the Taliban leadership?’ “All my life I fought for life as a doctor,” he said. “So I cannot change and support the death penalty. I should not apologize for these human rights principles and be punished.” 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 established several clinics to care for Afghan women and girls. Samar recalled the Taliban’s previous rule in the late 1990s, when they largely confined women to their homes, banned television and music and carried out public executions. A US-led invasion ousted the Taliban months after the September 11, 2001, attacks, which were orchestrated by al-Qaeda from Afghanistan while in a Taliban hideout. After the Taliban were ousted, Samar returned to Afghanistan, moving to the forefront of women’s rights and human rights, and over the next 20 years, schools and universities opened for girls, women entered the workforce and politics, and became judges . But Samar said in an AP interview in April 2021 — four months before the Taliban took over the country for the second time — that gains were fragile and human rights activists had many enemies in Afghanistan, from militants and warlords to those who wanted to stifle criticism or challenge their power. Samar said the Afghan government and leadership, especially Ghani, were primarily responsible for the Taliban’s invasion of Kabul and seizure of power. But he also put the blame on the Afghans “because we were too divided.” In every speech and interview he has given nationally and internationally over the years, he has said that Afghans must be united and inclusive and “we must have the support of the people. Otherwise, we will lose.” As chairman of the Human Rights Commission, he said he faced repeated criticism that he was trying to impose Western values on Afghanistan. “And I kept saying, human rights are not Western values. As a human being, everyone should have a shelter… access to education and health services, to safety,” he said. Since taking over, 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 high school and university, but also to ensure all related human rights. And he stressed the importance of education for young boys, who without school, work or skills could be at risk of becoming involved in opium production, arms smuggling or violence. He also urged the international community to continue humanitarian programs that are critical to saving lives, but said they should focus on food instead of work or cash for work to end people’s complete dependence and give them “self-reliance and dignity. “ Samar said Afghan society has changed over the past two decades, with more access to technology, rising education levels among young people and some experience with elections, even if they were not free and fair. He said such achievements leave room for positive change in the future. “These are the issues (the Taliban) cannot control,” he said. “They would like to, but they can’t.” Samar said she hopes for final accountability and justice for war crimes and crimes against humanity. “Otherwise, we feel the culture of impunity everywhere, everywhere — and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is a repeat of Afghanistan,” he said. Her hope for Afghan women is that they can “live with dignity instead of being slaves to people.”
