The Taliban junta in Afghanistan on Thursday condemned U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres for denouncing its brutal treatment of women, claiming Guterres lacks the required credentials in Islamic sharia law to comment on the Taliban’s conduct.
Guterres was holding a press conference in New York City on Tuesday when Afghan International journalist Maryam Rahmati asked him to comment about “Afghan women and girls, who remain erased from public life under the Taliban.”
“What concrete steps will the UN take to hold the Taliban accountable for systemic gender apartheid?” she asked.
Rahmati was not engaging in hyperbole – the Taliban literally banned women from public speaking in August 2024, along with a raft of other oppressive restrictions on the behavior of women.
Before that, in December 2022, the Taliban banned women from working for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) such as humanitarian aid groups.
The U.N. World Health Organization (W.H.O.) pleaded with the Taliban to lift this ban for female relief workers after a devastating earthquake struck Afghanistan in early September, especially after women were left buried under earthquake rubble because male rescue workers were not allowed to touch them. The Taliban refused to lift the ban.
“Well, what’s happening in Afghanistan is absolutely intolerable. And it’s not only intolerable, it’s also stupid,” Guterres replied to Rahmati on Tuesday.
Guterres said refusing to allow women and girls in humanitarian aid efforts was “terribly detrimental to the whole population of Afghanistan.”
“We are doing everything we can directly and mobilizing the international community to make the Taliban understand that it is in the vital interest of Afghanistan that women and girls are allowed to do humanitarian work and that humanitarian aid reaches effectively women and girls in the country,” he said.
“The present situation is intolerable,” he repeated.
Guterres said gender equality has always been the U.N.’s “motto” and there were “other aspects” of the Taliban’s rule that clearly fell short of that goal, but the “deprivation of humanitarian aid to women and girls” was an especially urgent matter.
“This is something that is, in my opinion, totally unacceptable,” he said.
None of this sat well with the jihadi government in Kabul, which dispatched “Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan” spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid to deliver a tirade against Guterres on social media platform X.
“We strongly condemn the irresponsible remarks of the United Nations Secretary-General in which he called the measures taken regarding women in Afghanistan foolish,” the Taliban spokesman said.
“The head of the United Nations must be mindful of the meaning of his words and statements and not use baseless accusations,” he said.
“Laws and guidelines regarding women and men in Afghanistan are based on Islamic Sharia law and in accordance with them,” he asserted.
“If someone does not have knowledge about Sharia laws themselves, this is their own ignorance, which they should complete their knowledge of instead of accusing others,” he sneered.
Guterres’ Special Representative for Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva, said on Wednesday that Afghanistan is facing a “perfect storm of crises,” due in no small part to the lack of “pragmatism” among the fanatical Taliban rulers.
Otunbayeva warned that the Taliban’s ideology will continue to “prevent sustainable solutions” for Afghanistan’s problems.
“This is most clear regarding the de facto authorities’ policies towards Afghan women. A generation is at serious risk of being lost at a huge long-term cost to the country,” she warned.
Hanifa Girowal, vice president of the Afghan human rights group Women’s Rights First, echoed the charge of “gender apartheid” in remarks to the U.N. Human Rights Council.
“it’s a deliberate policy of forced confinement, exclusion and subjugation,” said Girowal.
The U.N. noted that it has “provided nearly $13 billion in humanitarian and basic needs assistance” to Afghanistan since 2021, the year of the Taliban takeover, “much of it delivered despite restrictions and with strengthened safeguards to prevent diversion.” Unless Guterres is prepared to turn off the money spigot, the Taliban is unlikely to take his criticisms seriously.
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