By not inviting or denying entry to women journalists at a press conference of Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister and Taliban leader, Amir Khan Muttaqi, in New Delhi on Friday, the Afghanistan establishment has, once again, shown its true colours on gender issues. The press conference took place after a bilateral meeting between Muttaqi and India’s Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar. Ever since the Taliban, the militant-political movement that swears by a strict code of Islamic law, took charge of the country for the second time in 2021, Afghan women have been stripped of virtually all rights, including the right to work and study, visibility, especially in public spaces, opportunity for healthcare, and even independent mobility.

That the Taliban has been unapologetically—in fact, brazenly—invisi

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