Afghanistan, officially the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located at the crossroads of Central Asia and South Asia. It is bordered by Pakistan to the east and south, Iran to the west, Turkmenistan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, Tajikistan to the northeast, and China to the northeast and east. Occupying 652,864 square kilometers (252,072 sq mi) of land, the country is predominantly mountainous with plains in the north and the southwest, which are separated by the Hindu Kush mountain range. Kabul is the country's capital and largest city. Afghanistan's population is estimated to be between 36–50 million.
Humanitarian aid workers belonging to United Nations organisations, PVOs / NGOs or the Red Cross / Red Crescent are among the list of protected persons under international humanitarian law that grant them immunity from attack by belligerent parties. However, attacks on humanitarian workers have occasionally occurred, and become more frequent since the 1990s and 2000s.
Kabul University is one of the major and oldest institutions of higher education in Afghanistan. It is in the 3rd District of the capital Kabul near the Ministry of Higher Education. It was founded in 1931 by King Mohammed Nadir Shah, whose prime minister at the time was his younger brother, Sardar Mohammad Hashim Khan. Approximately 22,000 students attend Kabul University. In August 2021, before the Taliban takeover, nearly half were female.
Dr. Massouda Jalal is the first woman in the history of Afghanistan who ran for the Office of the President of Afghanistan in 2002, 2004, and again in 2019. Dr. Jalal emerged as a leading voice of Afghan women after her election as the Representative to the 2002 Loya Jirga as she became one of the frontrunners for the position of Interim President of Afghanistan, opposite to ex-president Hamid Karzai.
The Afghan Times is an independent and online news outlet founded in August 2022. Operated primarily by Afghan women journalists, the publication focuses on human rights and women's issues. The outlet provides content in Pashto, Dari and English.
Sakena Yacoobi is an Afghan activist known for her work for promoting access to education for women and children. She is the founder and executive director of the women-led NGO Afghan Institute of Learning. For her work, Yacoobi has received international recognition, including the 2013 Opus Prize, the 2015 WISE Prize, the 2016 Harold W. McGraw Prize in Education, and an honorary degree from Princeton University.
Afghanistan has competed in 16 Summer Games. They have never appeared in any Winter Games. The country made its first appearance at the Berlin Games in 1936. It has sent a delegation to 14 of the 19 subsequent Summer Games since then. It is organised by the National Olympic Committee of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. The Committee is currently in exile and presided by Hafizullah Wali Rahimi: the International Olympic Committee has not recognized the Taliban regime's Committee, headed by Ahmadullah Wasiq.
Women's rights in Afghanistan are severely restricted by the Taliban. In 2023, the United Nations termed Afghanistan as the world's most repressive country for women. Since the US troops withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021, the Taliban gradually imposed restrictions on women's freedom of movement, education, and employment. Women are banned from studying in secondary schools and universities, making Afghanistan the only country to prohibit females from studying beyond the sixth grade. Women are not allowed in parks, gyms, or beauty salons. They are forbidden from going outside for a walk or exercise, from speaking or showing any part of their face or body outside the home, or even from singing or reading from within their own homes if they could be heard by strangers outside. In extreme cases, women have reportedly been subjected to gang-rape and torture in Taliban prisons.
Aryana Sayeed is an Afghan pop singer and women rights activist. She sings mostly in Dari Persian but also has many songs in Pashto and some in Uzbek. Sayeed also had hosting roles in musical television shows for the 1TV and TOLO networks along with appearances on reality shows. Sayeed has established herself as one of Afghanistan's most famous contemporary musical artists, performing regularly in concerts and philanthropic festivals within and outside Afghanistan.
Abdul Hakim Haqqani, also known as Abdul Hakim Ishaqzai, is an Afghan Islamic scholar and writer who has been the chief justice of Afghanistan since 2021 in the internationally unrecognized Taliban regime. He has also served as chief justice of the Supreme Court in the 1996–2001 Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. He was the chairman of the Taliban negotiation team in the Qatar office. He is one of the founding members of the Taliban and was a close associate of the late leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.
Zakia Khudadadi is a Hazara parataekwondo practitioner. She is the first Afghan female taekwondo practitioner. She rose to prominence after winning the African International Parataekwondo Championship in 2016 at the age of 18. She represented Afghanistan at the 2020 Summer Paralympics. She was initially denied the opportunity to compete at her first Paralympics due to the Taliban takeover but was later allowed by the International Paralympic Committee to compete in the event after being safely evacuated from Afghanistan. She was able to compete and became the first Afghan female Paralympic competitor to compete at the Paralympics in 17 years since Mareena Karim's participation at the 2004 Summer Paralympics. She also officially became the first Afghan female sportsperson to participate in an international sporting event after the Taliban takeover and the first-ever member of the Refugee Paralympic Team to win a medal.
Protests in Afghanistan held by Islamic democrats and feminists against the treatment of women by the Taliban began on 17 August 2021, following the fall of Kabul. Supported by the National Resistance Front of Afghanistan, the protesters also demanded decentralization, multiculturalism, social justice, labor, education, and food. Pro-Taliban counterprotests also took place.
The Taliban has ruled Afghanistan as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan since taking control by force in 2021, overthrowing the internationally recognized Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. The takeover was widely criticized by the international community, and no countries have extended de jure diplomatic recognition to the new regime, despite nominally maintaining relations with Afghanistan. The Taliban has campaigned for international recognition since the takeover. Several countries have vowed never to recognize the Islamic Emirate, and others have said they will do so only if human rights in the country are respected. Some countries have accredited Taliban diplomats at the chargé d'affaires level despite not recognizing the Islamic Emirate. In September 2023, the People's Republic of China became the first country to formally name a new ambassador to the country since the takeover, and in January 2024 recognized the Taliban's envoy to China; however, the PRC still does not formally recognize the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan. The United Arab Emirates also accepted a Taliban appointed diplomat as Afghanistan's new ambassador in August 2024.
Fatima Gailani is an Afghan political leader and women's rights activist, who previously served as president of the Afghan Red Crescent Society. She was recognized as one of the BBC's 100 women of 2021.
Crystal Bayat is an Afghan social activist and human rights advocate known for her protests against the Taliban takeover, advocacy for women rights and political activism inside and outside Afghanistan. A native of the Ghazni province, Shia (coming from the Bayat family, a Turkic ethnicity minority, Bayat was born in 1997 in Kabul. She grew up most of her life with democracy and positive societal changes. She is currently continuing the fight to preserve Afghan human right's achievements as an agent of change.
The politics of Afghanistan are based on a totalitarian emirate within the Islamic theocracy in which the Taliban Movement holds a monopoly on power. Dissent is not permitted, and politics are mostly limited to internal Taliban policy debates and power struggles. As the government is provisional, there is no constitution or other basis for the rule of law. The structure is autocratic, with all power concentrated in the hands of the supreme leader and his clerical advisors. According to the V-Dem Democracy indices Afghanistan was as of 2023 the 4th least electoral democratic country in the world.
Events in the year 2023 in Afghanistan.
Tamana Zaryab Paryani is an Afghan journalist and women's rights activist known for her protests against Taliban rule in Afghanistan. She is widely recognised as a symbol of the women's struggle in Afghanistan. In December 2022, Tamana was named as one of BBC's 100 Women. She is a member of an Afghan women's rights activist group Seekers of Justice. She fled Afghanistan in August 2022 and now lives in Germany.
Halima Sadaf Karimi is an Afghan politician and former member of Parliament.
Angela Ghayour is an Afghan educator and advocate for women's rights. After facing challenges with formal education as a child refugee in Iran, she began teaching literacy and numeracy to other refugee children. She founded Afghanistan Education Action.
