French feminists protest Taliban Minister visit

By Vaiju Naravane

PARIS, FEB. 17. The visit to Paris earlier this week by the Afghan Health Minister, Mullah Mohammed Abbas, has drawn protests from French feminist leaders.

Mullah Abbas met French Foreign Office representatives and members of humanitarian organisations while in Paris. Since the imposition of U.N. sanctions against the Taliban regime in

Afghanistan on Jan. 19, members of the Afghan regime are theoretically persona non grata in U.N. member states.

However, Foreign Office officials were quick to point out that the U.N. Resolution allows for exceptions on humanitarian grounds. Mullah Abbas's visit to several European countries to discuss health issues was such an exception, a Quai d'Orsay communique said. Officials said that the Ministry had used the meeting with the Taliban Minister to ``reiterate, with the utmost firmness, our positions on drugs, human rights and notably, the condition of women''.

But French feminists were unimpressed by the official explanations. Mrs Shoukriya Haider who heads Negar, an association for support to Afghan women, said nothing could justify the visit. Ms Elisabeth Badinter, well-known feminist, writer and social historian, described the regime in Afghanistan as retrograde and criminal.

``Afghan women have been robbed of their dignity and their independence; they have been sequestered and humiliated. Many of them have taken to opium use in their despair,'' she told The Hindu.

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Section  : International
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