Anurag Kashyap shares Afghan filmmaker Sahraa Karimi's open letter appealing to end 'silence' over Taliban's entry

Even as the world was updating itself on the swift fall of Kabul and the Ashraf Ghani government in Afghanistan, an Afghan filmmaker’s appeal to the international community to end its silence presents a grim picture of the tragedy that the country confronts as it is overrun by the Taliban. 

Bollywood filmmaker Anurag Kashyap on Sunday (August 16) shared a social media appeal from Sahraa Karimi, an Afghan filmmaker, who is the first female chairperson of the Afghan Film Organisation.

Anurag took to his Instagram handle and shared an open letter from the filmmaker, originally shared on Karimi’s Twitter account. In it, she had talked about the atrocities faced by the people of Afghanistan and urged everyone to spread her message widely. In the caption of his post, Anurag wrote, "Pls share it far and wide…"

Karimi writes passionately about the horrors the Taliban has been inflicting upon the people, selling girls off as child brides to their fighters, gouging out the eyes of women who did not wear the "right" clothes, assassinating members of the government, notably the head of media and culture, as well as a comedian, a historian and a poet, and displacing hundreds of thousands of families, who are now living in unsanitary conditions in Kabul, their babies dying because there's no milk.

Questioning the "silence" of international humanitarian organisations on the situation in Afghanistan, and the legitimacy of the Doha peace talks, Karimi writes, "We have grown accustomed to this silence, yet we know it is not fair. We know that this decision to abandon our people is wrong, that this hasty troop withdrawal is a betrayal of our people."

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by Anurag Kashyap (@anuragkashyap10)

Karimi points out that the so-called peace talks had only emboldened the Taliban to step up their war against the legitimate government of Afghanistan and brutalise the people. Warning of the imminent descent of her country into the dark days when the Taliban first ruled Afghanistan, Karimi says the "immense gains" made especially by the younger generation over the last 20 years "could be lost again" because of "this abandonment".

Highlighting what Taliban rule could mean for Afghanistan’s creative community and its women, Karimi writes, "If the Taliban takes over it will ban art. I and other filmmakers could be next on their hit list. They will strip away women’s rights, we will be pushed to the shadows, to our homes, and our voices will be stifled into silence. Just in these few weeks, the Taliban have destroyed many schools and two million girls are now forced out of school."

Karimi ends her open letter with an appeal to the world to stand behind people like her who will "stay and fight for my country". Will the world listen to her, or as she fears (but hopes against) "turn its back on us?” 

Amid the transfer of power in Afghanistan, after U.S.-led forces withdrew the bulk of their remaining troops in the last month, the Taliban campaign accelerated as the Afghan military’s defences appeared to collapse. The United States Armed Forces are scheduled to be withdrawn from Afghanistan by 31 August.

In a separate development, the Taliban have entered Kabul, capturing Kabul University in the west of the Afghan capital. Earlier, the Taliban in a statement had assured residents of Kabul not to be afraid as they do not intend to enter the Afghan capital militarily and there will be a peaceful movement towards Kabul.

(IANS & ANI inputs)