It was nearly dark on 19 January 2022 when the knocking began. At first soft, then insistent, the sound echoed through the flat in the Afghan capital, Kabul. Zarmina Paryani and her sisters froze. They had known this day was coming.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe always knew the risks of protesting and we were prepared to die on the streets,\u201d the 26-year-old activist told the Guardian. \u201cBut I never imagined they would come for us like that \u2013 in the middle of the night, breaking into our home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Just three days earlier, she and dozens of women had protested on the streets and burned a burqa in a symbolic act<\/a> of defiance against the Taliban\u2019s growing restrictions. The protest had been organised via WhatsApp groups and word of mouth.<\/p>\n The image of the burning burqa, shared on social media, had gone viral and ignited uproar among Taliban<\/a> soldiers and supporters, who were demanding the women be stoned to death for disrespecting the garment. Now, they were at her door.<\/p>\n As masked men began forcing their way inside, Paryani says she made a desperate decision. \u201cI couldn\u2019t bear to be taken alive. I couldn\u2019t watch them enter our bedroom, violate us or behead us in the night.\u201d She jumped from the three-storey window.<\/p>\n Zarmina Paryani now lives in exile in Germany with her sisters. Photograph: Sayed Abdali<\/p>\n Miraculously, she survived the fall with minor injuries. Just as fortunately, before the Taliban could break down their door, her sister Tamana Paryani recorded a short video<\/a> in which she screamed that the Taliban were outside. She sent the footage to a journalist and it was immediately posted on social media, with their arrest initially denied by the militants<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cThat video saved our lives. It was the only weapon we had.\u201d<\/p>\n Zarmina grew up in Panjshir, in a deeply religious family. For years, before she moved to Kabul, her education consisted only of mosque schooling. \u201cFrom a young age, we were taught that women were \u2018deficient in mind\u2019. I believed it. I adjusted myself to it.\u201d<\/p>\n But school brought questions. Why were her high marks never enough to prove her worth compared with her brother? Why did neighbours mock her for attending school at all? Her mother, who had been denied an education, encouraged her daughters to keep going. \u201cShe used to say: learn so you will never need to depend on a man.\u201d<\/p>\n Zarmina trained as a midwife, but when the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, the small gains that women and girls had made evaporated overnight. \u201cIt felt like a storm had come. Everything we had, even the little things, they took away.\u201d<\/p>\n In the early weeks of the takeover, a spontaneous women\u2019s protest movement emerged. Largely leaderless, composed of ordinary women \u2013 students, police officers, teachers, midwives \u2013 it began as scattered, small-scale marches. Zarmina and her sisters joined.<\/p>\n \u201cWe didn\u2019t tell our father. He would never have let us go. Like many families, they didn\u2019t support the protests because they feared for our safety.\u201d<\/p>\n They covered their faces with masks, met in secret, and hid signs inside black plastic bags. Sometimes they changed locations at the last minute to evade Taliban patrols. Their demands were simple: the right to study, to work, to live without fear.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were not affiliated with any political party. We were just women asking for our rights,\u201d says another protester, who was detained and beaten by Taliban officials after a protest near Kabul University in December 2022.<\/p>\n By January 2022 and the raid on Zarmina\u2019s home, the sporadic arrests had turned into a targeted suppression. The video her sister sent to the journalist spread across international media and prompted global outrage. But inside Afghanistan<\/a>, the result was clear: dissent would be met with brutal force.<\/p>\n The Taliban were arriving at the site of protests sometimes before the protest had started, says Zarmina, with women repressed into silence.<\/p>\n Today, no women come to the street to protest. The last known public protest took place in west Kabul in September last year. Indoor protests, symbolic acts, such as dancing alone in a mosque or burning the burqa, are now the only forms of resistance.<\/p>\n Since the Taliban\u2019s return to power, women and girls have been barred from nearly every aspect of public life<\/a>: schools, universities, most jobs and even parks.<\/p>\n Zarmina spent 27 days in detention before being released and told: \u201cIf you speak again, we will cut your throat.\u201d<\/p>\n A session of the hearings for the People\u2019s Tribunal for Women of Afghanistan, held in Madrid in October. Photograph: Courtesy of Rawadari<\/p>\n She managed to escape to Pakistan disguised in a burqa and plastic shoes and now lives in exile in Germany. \u201cI don\u2019t feel secure even here. And when I write or speak, I wonder: will my father be harmed? Will my family be punished?\u201d<\/p>\n Despite her fears, she testified at the People\u2019s Tribunal for Women of Afghanistan during a hearing in Madrid in October, one of the few venues where Afghan women have spoken publicly about gender apartheid<\/a> under Taliban rule. \u201cIt didn\u2019t change what happened to me, but at least it\u2019s a record for history.\u201d<\/p>\n Rashida Manjoo, chair of the Tribunal, said: \u201cThe systematic exclusion of women and girls [by the Taliban authorities] from education, employment, healthcare, freedom of expression, public life and freedom of movement constitute gender persecution.\u201d<\/p>\n Zarmina and other anti-Taliban protesters in exile say they continue to get messages from girls in Afghanistan who have been pushed into marriage<\/a>, or forced to do sex work<\/a> to be able to afford to feed their children.<\/p>\n \u201cWe used to think the Taliban were just a group of religious men. Now we see what their rule really means. Maybe next time, people won\u2019t be fooled. Sometimes I think this generation, with all this suffering, might finally learn who the real enemy is.\u201d<\/p>\n Zahra Nader is editor-in-chief and Sayed Abdali a reporter at Zan Times journalist<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was nearly dark on 19 January 2022 when the knocking began. 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