A prominent Afghan filmmaker has blasted world leaders for what she sees as their “betrayal” of Afghanistan, warning that the Taliban will ban the arts and erase the gains made by women.
Sahraa Karimi, a female Afghan filmmaker and general director of the country’s national film company, Afghan Film, pleaded with the international film community in a series of tweets over the weekend as the country fell to Taliban forces.
“I write to you with a broken heart and a deep hope that you can join me in protecting my beautiful people, especially filmmakers, from the Taliban,” she wrote.
“They have massacred our people, they kidnapped many children, they sold girls as child brides to their men… It’s a humanitarian crisis, and yet the world is silent… They will ban all art. I and other filmmakers could be next on their hit list.”
Karimi blasted world leaders — as well as the media and world humanitarian organizations — for their “silence” and abandonment of Afghanistan.
“We know that this decision to abandon our people is wrong, that this hasty troop withdrawal is a betrayal of our people and all that we did when Afghans won the Cold War for the west,” she wrote. “Our people were forgotten then, leading up to the Taliban’s dark rule, and now, after 20 years of immense gains for our country and especially our younger generations, all could be lost again in this abandonment.”
Sahraa Karimi, Arezoo Ariapoor, Fereshta Afshar and Hasiba Ebrahimi attend the “Hava, Maryam, Ayesha” photocall during the 76th Venice Film Festival at on September 06, 2019 in Venice, Italy. (Theo Wargo/Getty Images)
In this photo taken on August 6, 2019, movie director Sahraa Karimi (R) takes part in an interview with AFP during the Afghan Film Festival in Kabul. – The 36-year-old movie director Karimi’s female-led picture “Hava, Maryam, Ayesha” premiered this month at the Venice Film Festival. (WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP via Getty Images)
She also said the 9 million Afghan girls attending school will likely be forced out of schools under the Taliban.
Wherever it has ruled, the Taliban has taken measures to expunge art and culture, including wiping out ancient art and artifacts in keeping with its extremist belief that all human likenesses are un-Islamic and therefore must be destroyed.
As Breitbart News reported, U.S. allies are blasting President Joe Biden’s chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and his administration’s complete failure to defend the country from the Taliban.
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