"The beating lasted three or four minutes, but after four years my body still hurts."

BarcelonaThe words of Shaharzad Akbar, director of the human rights organization Rawadari, opened the session, already making it clear that this would be an emotional day. "All of us Afghans in this room wish this tribunal could be held in Kabul," he said before pausing, taking a deep breath, and trying not to burst into tears. He then continued in a trembling voice until he managed to regain a steady tone.

This week, the tribunal was held in Madrid. a people's court on women in Afghanistan, in which for two and a half days women victims of the brutality, discrimination and gender apartheid of the Taliban have testified, but also international activists and jurists have intervened who have provided evidence before a panel of experts on the crimes committed by this fundamentalist regime.

This is a symbolic initiative organized by the Permanent People's Tribunal (PPT), an international tribunal of opinion that since its founding in 1979 in Bologna, Italy, has held more than fifty sessions around the world on cases with a common denominator: there was clear evidence of human rights violations, but the international community's reaction was null. And that is precisely what has been sought these days in Madrid: "To stop the crime of silence" about Afghanistan, in the words of Shaharzad Akbar, representative of one of the Afghan organizations promoting the initiative. "We want to stop the normalization of the Taliban's tyranny and honor the courage of the women of Afghanistan."

Courage

There was no shortage of courage. The Afghan women who testified described their suffering in detail, some unable to hold back their tears. Like a young woman wearing a mask to hide her identity, who recounted her imprisonment in a Taliban prison for peacefully protesting in the street for Afghan women's rights. "I can't forget it. That night, someone came into my cell with their face covered and started hitting and punching me, but I couldn't even put my hands over my face to protect myself," she said, sobbing and with trembling hands. "He hit me so hard that he broke three of my ribs. The beating lasted three or four minutes, but four years later my body still hurts," she continued.

Another girl stated that she was a simple midwife working in a hospital and that the Taliban also arrested her for protesting against the requirement that women in Afghanistan have to go out on the streets with a mask. mahram, that is, accompanied by a male member of the family. "In my house, there are seven of us sisters and my only brother lives outside of Afghanistan. My father can't accompany us all when we go out, nor can he go with me when I go to work," she complained. "I was dressed completely in black and with a hijab, but the taxi drivers refused to take me to the hospital because mahram", she explained. She spent 27 days in prison, and the Taliban assured her that they would stone her to death as a lesson to other women. "When they came into my cell, they told me not to look at their faces, to turn my back. Every time I did that, I was afraid they would shoot me," the young woman added.

Another woman explained that when the Taliban came to power in August 2021, she was studying medicine but was unable to graduate because they banned women from studying at university. The Taliban also banned the training of new midwives.

In fact, this is one of the serious problems in Afghanistan: the urgent lack of female medical personnel. During the decades of war, many of the most qualified professionals went into exile. Currently, the Taliban do not allow a male doctor to treat a woman, and the few active female doctors who remain are often unable to practice because they do not have a job. mahram to accompany them to work.

"I went to a dentist, and he said he was very sorry, but he couldn't treat me because I'm a woman. We don't have female dentists in Kandahar," said another desperate witness, referring to one of Afghanistan's southern provinces. There are no female surgeons in the country either. They are all men.

Some witnesses came forward. Others covered their faces for fear of being identified. There were also those who sent their accounts in writing from Afghanistan, or recorded an audio recording. Whatever the case, none of the witnesses left anyone indifferent and are the result of a year of work by four Afghan organizations that promoted the initiative: Rawadari, the Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organization (AHRDO), the Organization for Policy Research and Development Studies (DROPS), and Human Rights Defender Plus (HRD+).

The Human Rights Observatory of the Madrid Bar Association also collaborated. In fact, the popular tribunal was held at its headquarters. The organizers explained that they chose Madrid for the sessions because of Spain's involvement in the evacuation of hundreds of Afghan women in August 2021, when the Taliban came to power, and also because of its current commitment to Gaza.

Verdict

The Permanent People's Tribunal is inspired by the Russell Tribunal, also known as the International War Crimes Tribunal, established in 1966 to investigate first the United States intervention in Vietnam, and then human rights violations in Latin American dictatorships. It is made up of a network of internationally recognized experts and figures, who are periodically summoned to serve on the jury for each session. It has no judicial power or binding judgments, but it does have an internationally recognized moral and symbolic authority. In December, it will announce its verdict on human rights violations by the Taliban. It also assures that the testimony of all the women who have testified will not be in vain.