On Tuesday, the website of the Asian branch of BBC Television published a photo of the head of Taliban diplomacy, Amir Khan Muttaqi, with a number of Indian journalists staring at him. The photo comes from a press conference Muttaqi attended at the embassy in Delhi. Media representatives sit in the front row, almost without their heads covered, and direct questions to him. According to the Taliban, all this is unacceptable.
A controversial conference
Muttaqi arrived in India last Friday at the invitation of his Indian counterpart. He hoped to rebuild good relations by opening the Indian embassy in Kabul, which has remained closed for four years.
This visit did not take place without controversy. The Taliban's foreign minister called a conference, but did not specify who he was inviting to it. It was probably natural for Muttaqi that only men would come, as would be the case in his country of origin. The journalists who arrived at the scene were not invited to the Afghan embassy. This caused great outrage in India. The authorities were accused of “capitulation” and the whole situation was accused of being an affront to media freedom and Indian democracy.
The article continues below the video
The Press Club of India and the Indian Publishers Association criticized the exclusion of women journalists from the conference. Organizations also considered the incident to be submission to another government's terms and gender discrimination. The topic of women's exclusion in Afghanistan has appeared again in the media. Let us recall that the Taliban has cut off women from education, but also deprived them of the opportunity to go to the park or the gym, and the police can flog them for “indecent clothing.”
“Technical error”
Another conference called by Muttaqi was held on Sunday. This time, women were invited. CNN claims that this was due to pressure from the Indian government.
The photo mentioned at the beginning comes from this conference. The journalists didn't care about what he was wearing and bombarded Muttaqi with an avalanche of uncomfortable questions, including about women's education in Afghanistan. The head of diplomacy explained that “there are certain limitations [dla kobiet] in specific areas,” but, he argued, “this does not mean that the Taliban are against educating” women.
Muttaqi also explained the absence of women at Friday's conference. As he said, it was the result of a “technical error” because the list of invitees was supposed to be incomplete. However, an anonymous source from the Taliban government in an interview with the BBC admitted that not inviting the journalists was intentional.
