Women's Day first for fundamentalists

AGENCIES in Kabul - South China Morning Post

Under tight security, Afghanistan's Islamic fundamentalist Taleban marked International Women's Day yesterday for the first time since they took power nearly four years ago.

The Taleban, now in control of most of the country, has barred women from working outside and attending schools in line with strict interpretations of Islamic sharia law.

In a rare ceremony the Taleban militia, which seized Kabul in September 1996, took about 700 women to the Rabia Balkhi women's hospital in the city, driven in buses with dark curtains drawn.

The programme included recitation of the Koran, poetry and speeches on women's rights in Islam.

Acting UN Co-ordinator for Afghanistan Sayed Ahmed Farah said yesterday that the Taleban had softened its stringent attitude on women's access to education and health but had not altogether abandoned its hardline stand.

"In terms of attitude, in terms of approach, I am not saying there has been a 100 per cent turnaround," Mr Farah said.

"But yes, we have moved from a very tough and a difficult period to a much more flexible period," he said.

In his special message read at the function the Taleban's supreme leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, said it was thanks to the security provided by his troops that Kabul women were now able to mark their day.

Mr Omar accused the non-Muslim world of launching "propaganda" against the Taleban in the name of women's rights. "Their interpretation of women's rights is only those ugly and filthy Western cultures and customs in which women are insulted and dishonoured as a toy," it said.