Masood Saifullah - Afghan Women Cry For Help After Journalist Mina Mangal's Killing

A well-known Afghan journalist and political adviser was assassinated in broad day light over the weekend, demonstrating once again the poor state of women’s safety in the war-ravaged country.
Mina Mangal – who had worked as a presenter for several Afghan television channels before becoming cultural adviser for parliament – was gunned down by unidentified gunmen on Saturday when she was leaving home for work in the nation’s capital, Kabul.
Police in Afghanistan have launched a manhunt for Mangal’s ex-husband after her parents said he was responsible for her killing. Mangal’s brother, Shakib Mangal, said that his sister had once been abducted by her ex-husband’s family. “Her in-laws had abducted her two years ago but we were able to get her released with the help of some government officials and tribal elders,” Mangal said. “Her ex-husband, however, continued threatening Mina Mangal.”
He said his family has now filed a complaint against both his sister’s ex-husband and that man’s parents. Kabul police cite family disputes as the motive behind the killing. But Mangal’s brother stresses that the disputes had roots in his sister’s work and fight for young women and girls. Shakib Mangal said that his sister’s ex-husband had tried to stop her from working both during and after their marriage despite vowing not to oppose her working as a journalist before their wedding. Mina Mangal’s killing highlights the increasingly life-threatening risks faced by Afghan women working outside the home. Most Afghan men in this traditionally conservative society still hold the view that women need to stay at home and frown upon those in the workplace. Mangal worked as a presenter for several Afghan TV channels before becoming cultural adviser for parliament.

In 2018, the Thomson Reuters Foundation ranked Afghanistan as the second-most dangerous country for women, nearly 17 years after the overthrow of the Taliban regime. The Taliban were notorious for their repression of women during their rule from 1996 to 2001; they banned girls’ education, forbade women from working outside the home, forced them to wear full facial covering and shredded any Western notion of women’s rights, among other restrictions... read more:

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