Taliban push back against allegations of gender bias, rights abuses

Taliban Deputy Prime Minister Maulavi Abdul Kabir speaks to Ariana News, Sept. 27, 2024. (Ariana News) FILE - Afghan women wait to receive food rations in Kabul, Afghanistan, May 23, 2023. Afghan women are required to cover their faces and bodies in public.

Taliban leaders in Afghanistan have defended their Islamist rule amid intensified accusations of "gender-based" discrimination against women and girls at this week's U.N. General Assembly. "The situation is not as it is portrayed and propagated abroad," Maulavi Abdul Kabir, the Taliban deputy prime minister for political affairs, asserted in an interview with an Afghan television channel aired Friday. Kabir's comments came a day after nearly two dozen countries jointly supported Germany, Canada, the Netherlands and Australia in their initiative to hold the Taliban accountable for their alleged campaign to systematically exclude women from public life since the Taliban regained power in 2021.