Edmonton-based news channel highlights the plight of women and girls in Afghanistan
When a young YouTuber died at the hands of the Taliban in Afghanistan last year, a woman in Edmonton made sure the true story came to light.
The Taliban claimed that 25-year-old Hora Sadat committed suicide in August 2023, but a Zan Times documentary published earlier this month revealed that she was arrested and subsequently tortured to death.
Sadat’s story is one of many uncovered by Zan Times, a woman-run Afghan news outlet in exile, since the Taliban regained power three years ago.
As the media spotlight turns to other conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, Zahra Nader is ensuring that the stories of the brutality, oppression and exclusion faced by women and 2SLGBTQ+ people under Taliban rule continue to be told.
From an apartment in a three-story elevator-less building in Edmonton, the Zan Times team publishes stories online in English and Farsi.
Zan means woman in Farsi.
“I happen to be a journalist and this is the tool I have to fight back and resist,” Nader, founder and editor of the Zan Times, recently told Radio-Canada.
“It is important that the world knows that what is happening in Afghanistan will not stay in Afghanistan… It will affect people everywhere.”
When the Taliban re-emerged in August 2021, they promised to defend women’s rights. But according to experts, including Alison Davidian, head of UN Women Afghanistan, the situation has deteriorated again.
Millions of girls and women are denied access to schools, universities and jobs, and do not have the freedom to move around alone in public. Infant and maternal mortality rates are exploding, says Davidian.
“This week marks the third anniversary of the Taliban’s seizure of power in Afghanistan – three years of countless decrees, directives and statements targeting women and girls,” Davidian told reporters during her annual briefing on August 14.
She said other countries would be careful not to “emulate the Taliban’s systematic repression.”
“We cannot leave Afghan women to fight alone. If we do that, we will no longer have any moral basis to fight for women’s rights elsewhere. Their fate determines the fate of all women.”
Before the Taliban returned to power, Nader worked in Afghanistan as a correspondent for the New York Times and other international publications.
Her family fled the previous Taliban rule and lived in Iran before she became a doctoral student at York University in Toronto after the Taliban regained power.
She hired a team of Afghan journalists living at home and abroad and moved to the more affordable Edmonton to start the Zan Times.
Dangerous work
Finding sources and gaining their trust to bring investigative stories from Afghanistan to light is risky.
To protect their safety, reporters working in the country do not use their real names. They are known to the editors of the Zan Times, but not to each other.
“We know that the Taliban are actively looking for our colleagues, for our team, and are thinking about how to stop us,” Nader said. “And they have tried many times to silence us by pressuring our relatives and our families, but so far they have not been successful.”
Two months after the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, the lives of women and girls have been thrown into disarray and their plans have been turned upside down as they can no longer go to school or work.
Human Rights Watch is among the organizations that describe the gender persecution and gender segregation committed by the Taliban as crimes against humanity and for which the International Criminal Court has jurisdiction.
As pressure mounts for a country to file a complaint with the International Court of Justice to hold the Taliban accountable, Nader, from the safety of Canada, is determined to continue doing her part.
“We have no choice,” she said. “We have to fight back.”
