BANGKOK -- On the day the Taliban regained power in Afghanistan in August 2021 Shataakshi Verma fled the country, fearing that her work for the Ministry of Social Justice and the Art of Freedom Project, a collective running cultural workshops, meant she wouldn’t be safe. She was right.
Since its return, the Taliban, a fundamentalist group that adheres to Shariah in its strictest form, has persecuted filmmakers, painters, musicians, archivists, curators and other cultural workers. Folk singer Fawad Andarabi was killed in 2021. In October 2023, writer and theater director Fereydoun Fakuri was arrested on unknown charges; local media reports suggest that his arrest is linked to social media posts criticizing restrictions on education for girls. In January, poet and bookshop owner Izatullah Zawab was arrested, apparently because of his critical poetry.
