Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen has strongly criticised Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi for barring women journalists from attending a press conference in Delhi on Friday.
Nasreen, who has lived in exile since 1994, said the Taliban “refuse to grant women human rights because they do not consider women to be human.”
She also took aim at the male journalists who attended the event, saying they should have walked out in protest.
“The Afghan Foreign Minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, has come to India and held a press conference. However, he did not allow any female journalists to attend. In Islam as practiced by the Taliban, women are expected only to stay at home, bear children, and serve their husbands and children,” Nasreen wrote on X.
“These misogynistic men do not want to see women anywhere outside the home — not in schools, not in workplaces. They refuse to grant women human rights because they do not consider women to be human. If the male journalists had any conscience, they would have walked out of the press conference. A state built on vile misogyny is a barbaric state — and no civilised nation should recognise it,” she added.
The Ministry of External Affairs later clarified that it had no role in organising the Afghan minister’s press interaction. The briefing took place at the Afghanistan Embassy in Delhi after bilateral talks between External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Muttaqi. No joint press event was held after the meeting, and the Afghan delegation conducted its own media interaction.
During the embassy press conference, Muttaqi discussed India-Afghanistan relations, trade routes, humanitarian aid, and regional security. Only male journalists were allowed to attend.
Under the “Taliban 2.0” regime that took control in August 2021, Afghan women face what the UN describes as the world’s most severe women’s rights crisis. The Taliban have expanded restrictions on women’s education, work, and public presence, effectively erasing them from public life.
The exclusion of women journalists drew political backlash in India.
Congress leader P. Chidambaram condemned the incident, expressing shock that women journalists had been excluded from the press conference addressed by Amir Khan Muttaqi of Afghanistan. He added that, in his personal view, the male journalists should have walked out upon realizing that their female colleagues had been excluded or not invited.
Muttaqi’s visit, which runs until October 16, marks the first high-level Afghan delegation to India since the Taliban seized power in 2021.