Frozan Safi, to the end for the rights and freedom of Afghan women

In an accommodation centre for asylum seekers (Cada), somewhere in Île-de-France, Rita Safi looks at her nails: they are long, neat, painted with gold varnish. “My mother always told us that when the talibans were in power in Afghanistan in the 1990s, women were forbidden from wearing nail polish and having long nails. So, when Rita was growing up in Mazar-e Sharif, the big city in northern Afghanistan, her mother always allowed her and her sisters to get their nails done. She knew the price of that tiny, seemingly insignificant piece of freedom that women had.

Even today, at 29, Rita has made a habit of cutting short any remarks about her appearance or the way she dresses. In her tenacity and boldness, she takes inspiration from her older sister, Frozan Safi, who never let others interfere in her life.

Afghan women’s rights activist Frozan Safi is considered the first woman to be murdered after the Taliban took power in Afghanistan on August 15, 2021. It was following her sister’s murder that Rita Safi had to flee the country for Pakistan, before arriving in France two years later. And even today, the courage shown by her older sister is a beacon that guides her every day.

“She wasn’t afraid”

On August 14, 2021, Frozan and Rita watched in amazement as their city, Mazar-e-Sharif, known for the blue domes of its mosque rising into an arid sky, was taken without a fight. Since May, the Taliban had been advancing inexorably toward the capital, Kabul, while the Afghan army was in disarray. And on the morning of August 14, when Frozan Safi woke up, the Taliban were surrounding their home.

At the same time, crowds were rushing to the capital, Kabul, to flee the country. The specter of the first Taliban government, from 1996 to 2001, haunted memories: at that time, women had to wear a burqa when they went out, and were unable to study or work. But when the peril returned twenty years later, in August 2021, Frozan Safi, a 29-year-old economics professor, did not think of fleeing. “She wasn’t afraid”his sister remembers. He had to stay, to fight.

Because women were calling Frozan from everywhere. Some, in displacement camps, contacted the activist, asking her what to do: deprived of work, they did not know how to cope to feed their children. Frozan decided to act. On a WhatsApp group, she gathered other activists, as well as male friends. Soon, a demonstration was organized to protect women’s rights, in the wake of those that broke out elsewhere in Afghanistan, in Kabul, in Herat, in Nimroz.

So where did his determination come from? Why organize a demonstration when most of the activists feared for their lives? His sister Rita stares at us with her deep, black eyes. “At that time, we had hope.” The Taliban had made promises. Women would have freedom, they had assured them, “within the scope of Islamic law.” And Frozan clung to this idea, a frail glimmer in the falling darkness: “If we fight, things can change.”

So on September 6, about forty activists left the Blue Mosque, shouting slogans demanding freedom, education, and work for women. Frozan led the procession. But as the demonstration drew to a close, the Taliban fired into the air, beat and arrested several people.

It was after this event that fear, which she seemed to have never known, invaded Frozan Safi. On the group’s Whatsapp loop, a list from the Taliban was shared, on which were the names of people to be killed, including her own. Then unknown numbers kept calling her to threaten her.. “She said they wanted to kill her and that she had to leave.”

In October, Frozan, overcome with anxiety, cried constantly, in her bed, sometimes in her sleep. “She felt something was going to happenRita remembers. She asked us: “When I die, will you cry for me?” Why do you say things like that? she answered him. Nothing will happen to you.”

“They wanted to hide the reality”

Frozan was desperate to flee the country, but her emails to foreign embassies went unanswered. Until October 20, she received a call from someone claiming to be an organization that could arrange her evacuation. Without waiting, Frozan packed her official documents into her bag, put on a black and white scarf, told her mother she would be back in two hours, and went out. She never came back.

Her father and Rita found her body nine days later, in the morgue of Mazar-e-Sharif hospital. Riddled with bullets, she was unrecognizable. Her family recognized her by the clothes she was wearing that day, her black and white veil. Her relatives never knew exactly who killed her, but they are convinced that the Taliban were responsible.

“They were the only ones armed in the city, Rita testifies. They ignored us when we asked them for help and when we found his body they threatened us, telling us not to say anything about his death. They wanted to hide the reality of what had happened.

Today, in her Cada in Île-de-France, Rita constantly thinks about her sister, and often dreams of her. Frozan is for her an example, a compass, a martyr of courage. “We are so proud of her fight against the Taliban and for women’s rights”she said, straightening up as if to live up to her sister’s name.

Where did Frozan find such strength, such audacity? “Frozan was not afraid,” Rita often says. Why are some people afraid and others not? Where did she get this confidence, in moments when everything is shaky? For Rita, the key to this enigma is their father. A highly educated engineer – “ He knows everything ! “, according to Rita – an official in the Ministry of Mines and Oil – he homeschooled them in the evenings, when the girls were young and the Taliban then in power banned the education of young girls.

Unlike other families, where fathers sometimes woke their children up very early in the morning to go to the mosque, religion did not occupy much space in the Safi household. Their father did not observe the Ramadan fast, and the children prayed if they wanted to.

Aware of the weight that society placed on women, their father had raised his daughters as men. He often said to them: “You are my boys.” And encouraged them: “Study as much as you want. I will never ask you to marry.”

“Frozan thought differently”

Protected and knighted by their father, the Safi girls felt free from any attempt to take control of their lives. Even if their father told them they could do whatever they wanted, who could stop them? Each in their own way, they seized this freedom. Studious, Rita applied herself to school to get her diplomas, while Frozan spent his time in seminars devoted to women’s rights, social problems, drugs, etc.

“You should do like your sister Rita, she studies and doesn’t just talk,” the teachers said to Frozan. “But she thought otherwise, Rita remembers. She said, “I want to acquire knowledge, not degrees.” And she didn’t care what her teachers said.

Rita had taken their father at his word, and dressed like a boy. Frozan, on the other hand, was very feminine, but no less subversive. She liked to powder her face and put mascara on her eyelashes, even though it was forbidden at school. Frozan did not wear the veil until he was 15, and wore tight pants and clothes.

His colleague and friend, Arif Bassam, director of the Fekr-e Noor cultural center, worried about his safety, sometimes told him: : “I don’t care if you dress like that, but it might get you into trouble.” “I dress how I want,” she replied, categorical. Frozan answered the men, took the microphone in demonstration. “And everyone was only looking at her,” remembers Arif Bassam.

The young woman seemed inhabited by a force, or perhaps it was a keen sense of justice. “Why don’t women have rights?” she confided to Rita. Why didn’t they have the same freedom as me?” “Frozan wanted everyone to be free, like her.” His goal was for girls to no longer be afraid.

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In Afghanistan, women victims of “sexist persecution”

Since the Taliban took power in August 2021, Afghanistan is the only country where women do not have access to secondary and higher education. Taliban authorities have banned women from working in the public sector. In most Afghan provinces, authorities have also established regulations prohibiting women from leaving their homes without being accompanied by a male relative. In most places, they must wear a full hijab and cover their faces in public.

The non-governmental organization Human Rights Watch has called repeated violations of women’s rights in Afghanistan tantamount to gender-based persecution, which constitutes a crime against humanity.