The Women’s Protest Movements Alliance has voiced concerns over the attendance of U.S. Special Representative Thomas West at the Afghanistan Future Thought Forum held in Doha.
Thomas West took to Twitter to announce a gathering held in Doha between international partners and representatives, alongside Afghan women and men from diverse backgrounds, including economists, human rights activists, former ministers, and tribal elders.
The gathering, which was held on Thursday, April 13, 2023, took place in Doha, Qatar. According to Thomas West, the participants called for “interaction and dialogue” with the Taliban and “opposed” armed conflict against the group.
“I heard both condemnation and support for [the] Taliban conduct and different recommendations for how the international community should address challenges,” shared West in his tweet.
Six Afghan women attended the gathering to represent their fellow Afghan women. Nonetheless, the Women’s Protest Movements Alliance released a statement in reply to the gathering and the remarks made by its attendees, asserting that any gatherings or meetings lacking the participation of representatives from protesting women and victims of Taliban crimes are deemed illegitimate by the people of Afghanistan.
The protesting women have emphasized that Thomas West and Afghanistan’s international partners must not try to perpetuate injustice and oppression in the country through their discussions and engagement with the Taliban.
According to the statement released by the Women’s Protest Movements Alliance, “The gathering has taken place at a time when women, activists, and colleagues of the United States in Afghanistan, as well as former soldiers, opponents and critics of the Taliban in all corners of the country, are reportedly being captured, tortured, and murdered by the Taliban regime on a regular basis.”
Afghan protesting women claim that the root cause of poverty and misery in Afghanistan is the Taliban terrorist group itself. Their statement goes on to state that “we believe that the meetings which fail to acknowledge the painful plight of the Afghan people and exclude various groups only serve to further whitewash the Taliban and perpetuate the failed peace agenda between the United States and the Taliban.”
In their statement, the protesting women have called upon Thomas West and international partners of Afghanistan to include women, protestors, marginalized identities, as well as the families of the victims in discussions about the future of their land. They expressed their firm stance on the matter, urging that the exclusion of these groups from such important discussions only perpetuates injustice and suppression.
The Afghanistan Future Thought Forum gathering in Doha has called for the interaction of people, the international community, and political currents with the Taliban, while the Taliban has shown no interest in any interactions or negotiations with political currents and social groups on the issue of power in Afghanistan.
Thomas West twitted that at the Doha gathering, six women also spoke in favor of engaging with the Taliban group. However, this terrorist group has been actively oppressing other women who are protesting for their basic rights, such as education and work. The Taliban have been responsible for arresting, abducting, jailing, torturing, and even murdering these women. Furthermore, the country’s prisons are filled with journalists and critical writers, and women have been completely removed from all social scenes.
