We live in a place where the simplest things and activities are turned into distant dreams which we have to fight for.  

"The morning of the day that the Republic collapsed, I dressed to go to the university. I was in the Darul-Aman area when a friend told me that the Taliban had taken Dashti-Barchi [the western district of Kabul]. Everyone was in shock and nobody could believe that Kabul had fallen overnight.

I spent most of my time in my room, because our university was closed until further notice. The only thing I could do was walk around my room. I was anxious and was crying most of the time. I would move my hand through my hair and think again about all the plans and memories I had. Everything I had dreamt of fell apart when the Taliban entered Kabul. 

The fear of the first days under the Taliban was similar to the stories my mother had told me about the first period of their rule. I went out to the street and saw for myself how much the Taliban had changed for the worse and become more violent. Little by little, the fear of the Taliban decreased among the people and changed to a feeling of fighting back.

On 8 September 2021, we went to the streets to protest and threw away our fear. The next day, the Taliban announced their de facto cabinet and I went to the street and started our protests.  

I saw on the news that girls in the 7th grade and above were being sent home from school. At that moment, I felt like a bucket of cold water had spilled on me. I thought to myself; we live in the era of technology; world leaders are competing for development and to be the best, but our leaders are banning girls from education. Our leaders are debating whether girls should go to school or not; or what they should wear. All the Taliban is concerned about is women.

The other day, I filmed Taliban soldiers lashing women. That was the first time I had witnessed with my own eyes brute violence by the Taliban against women. That day, I myself was lashed, but because nobody at home knew that I was at the demonstration, I couldn’t tell anyone. Maybe it was that lash of the whip that awoke the spirit of fighting and protesting in me.

When you see that they are afraid of you, you become certain that they are afraid of your awareness and education. They know that if women are educated, they will become unstoppable. That is why they ban women from education.

Maybe our protests won’t add up to much, but it has been because of our protests that the Taliban has not succeeded in eliminating women and the world hasn’t recognized them [the Taliban].

Women go to university despite all the restrictions. Women participated in the university entrance exam despite all the challenges and limitations on which subjects they can choose to study.

These days, if we observe the state of women, it is impossible to be a woman and not be angry and upset about what rights have been taken away from us and what has happened to us. However, in terms of protests, these curtailments have made women even more tenacious. 

These days, women have high spirits. Not many women thought they had such a brave, fighting soul inside them. The current situation has awakened the fighting spirit in women.”