Afghanistan crisis: Taliban announces 'amnesty', urges women to join govt

The Taliban held their first official news conference in Kabul on Tuesday since the shock seizure of the city, declaring they wanted peaceful relations with other countries and would respect the rights of women within the framework of Islamic law. “We don't want any internal or external enemies,” the movement's main spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said.

Mujahid said women would be allowed to work and study and "will be very active in society but within the framework of Islam".

The Taliban would not seek retribution against former soldiers and members of the Western-backed government, he said, saying the movement was granting an amnesty for former Afghan government soldiers as well as contractors and translators who worked for international forces. “Nobody is going to harm you, nobody is going to knock on your doors,” he said. He said private media could continue to be free and independent in Afghanistan, adding the Taliban was committed to the media within its cultural framework.

The Taliban declared an “amnesty” across Afghanistan and urged women to join their government Tuesday, seeking to convince a wary population that they have changed a day after deadly chaos gripped the main airport as desperate crowds tried to flee the country.

A starkly different image played out on Tolo News, an Afghan television station: a female presenter interviewing a Taliban official.

Beheshta Arghand intervi­ewing a member of the Taliban’s media team on Tolo News | Photos: Tolo News, Reuters

Sitting several feet away from Mawlawi Abdulhaq Hemad, a member of the Taliban’s media team, the host, Beheshta Arghand, asked him about the situation in Kabul and the Taliban’s conducting house-to-house searches in the Afghan capital.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid at his first news conference in Kabul | Photos: Tolo News, Reuters