Lady Journalist who interviewed Taliban leader flees Afghanistan due to safety concerns

A female journalist, who made history by interviewing the Taliban earlier this month, has now fled Afghanistan amidst an exacerbating crisis. Beheshta Arghand made headlines earlier this month after she questioned a senior Taliban leader on air. Days later, the 24-year-old also interviewed activist Malala Yousafzai, who was shot for going to school by the Taliban almost a decade back. 

Working for Kabul based TOLO News, the young journalist soon gained traction with stills from her pathbreaking interviews stirring the internet. However, as the Taliban gained more ground and foreign evacuation operations started to wane, Arghand decided to leave her motherland, petrified of the future that the country held for journalists. On Tuesday, she boarded a Qatari Air Force evacuation flight along with her family and left Afghanistan to start afresh.

Speaking to CNN later, she asserted that she did the rare interview with Taliban representative for the women of Afghanistan. “I told myself, One must start,” Arghand reckoned to add that if she did not do the interview Taliban would have gotten the chance to say that women in the country do not want to work. Asserting that working was the right of women in Afghanistan, the young journalist said that she was hopeful about her return to her native country. “If the Taliban do what they said and the situation becomes better”, she said then, in that case, she would love to work for her country and her people.

Taliban allow women to attend university

Meanwhile, Taliban's acting higher education minister Abdul Baqi Haqqani on Sunday said that the Afghan women would be allowed to attend university for education but they wouldn’t be allowed to be part of the co-ed class. The Taliban, during their earlier stint in power in the 1990s, had banned girls from getting an education along with women’s free movement in the country. 

Earlier, the extremists on several occasions made a number of promises to protect women's rights. However, despite their assurance, the Taliban began white-washing posters of women soon after capturing Kabul. The group has even ordered news outlets and radio channels not to broadcast any programs with female voices, leading to female anchors being sacked by many outlets. The Taliban have also banned music with female voices on Radio and completely prohibited playing music in public areas. Reports of the extremist group targeting activists, who stood for women’s rights in the country, had also come out soon after the takeover of Kabul.

Image: ToloNews/Twitter