Taliban Foreign Minister Delhi Press Meet: After uproar over their exclusion from his earlier press meet held on Friday, visiting Afghan foreign minister Amir Khan Muttaqi has called another press interaction on Sunday, this time inviting women journalists.
During his earlier media interaction on Friday evening, a day after landing in New Delhi for a week-long India visit, the Taliban leader had come under fire for discriminatory behaviour for “not allowing” women journalists, sparking massive outrage.
The Editors Guild of India and the Indian Women Press Corps (IWPC) termed the act as highly discriminatory, which cannot be justified, citing diplomatic privilege under the Vienna Convention.
“While diplomatic premises may claim protection under the Vienna Convention, that cannot justify blatant gender discrimination in press access on Indian soil,” the Guild said in a statement.
India on Saturday asserted that it had no role in the press conference addressed by Muttaqi. “The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) had no involvement in the press interaction held yesterday by the Afghan FM in Delhi,” officials said Saturday.
“Whether or not the MEA coordinated the event, it is deeply troubling that such a discriminatory exclusion was allowed to proceed without objection,” the Guild said.
The IWPC urged the Government of India to take this matter up with the Afghan Embassy to ensure that such gender-based exclusion in media briefings does not occur in the future.
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Several Opposition leaders came out to question the Centre over the alleged ‘ban’ on women at the event. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi hit out at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying, “When you allow the exclusion of women journalists from a public forum, you are telling every woman in India that you are too weak to stand up for them.”
“In our country, women have the right to equal participation in every space. Your silence in the face of such discrimination exposes the emptiness of your slogans on Nari Shakti,” he added.
Priyanka Gandhi Vadra asked PM Modi to “clarify” his position on the incident. She asked how the “insult to some of India’s most competent women was allowed in our country, a country whose women are its backbone and its pride”.
TMC MP Mahua Moitra said: “Govt has dishonoured every single Indian woman by allowing the Taliban minister to exclude women journalists from the presser. Shameful bunch of spineless hypocrites.”
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Former Union Minister P Chidambaram said the male journalists should have walked out of the press meet when they found out women were not allowed at the event. “I am shocked that women journalists were excluded from the press conference addressed by Amir Khan Muttaqi of Afghanistan. In my personal view, the men journalists should have walked out when they found that their women colleagues were excluded (or not invited),” he said.
