Human Rights Activist Declines UN Invitation To 3rd Doha Meeting
Zubaida Akbar, a human rights activist, has announced that she received an invitation from the United Nations to participate in the Doha meeting, but has decided not to attend it.
Akbar expressed her anger over the UN's decision to exclude women from the main table of discussions in Doha.
Human rights activists report that the UN has removed women from the composition and agenda of the main Doha meeting. However, according to them, "Some women and civil society activists" will be invited to meet with special representatives of countries in smaller meets. It is still unclear who exactly has received invitations from the UN.
Akbar wrote on the X social media platform, "I am outraged by the UN's decision to exclude women from the Doha 3 on Taliban’s terms." She added that the Doha meeting, without women, achieves nothing but appeasement for the Taliban.
According to this human rights activist, considering that Afghanistan is experiencing the most serious women's rights crisis in the world, the issue of women should have been a priority on the Doha meeting agenda.
The Taliban will send their representatives to Qatar late next week to attend the two-day meeting in Doha with senior UN officials and special representatives from 25 countries for Afghanistan.
This is the third meeting led by the UN and the first meeting to include Taliban officials. However, the exclusion of women and civil society representatives from the main meeting has sparked widespread criticism.
