Angelina Jolie joins Instagram to share stories of people of Afghanistan and those “fighting for basic human rights”
Angelina Jolie dubbed the US’s involvement with Afghanistan over the last two decades “a failure almost impossible to understand.”
Actor and special envoy for UN refugees Angelina Jolie joined Instagram to amplify the voices of people in Afghanistan after the Taliban’s takeover especially threatens the lives, rights, and dreams of young girls and women in the country.
Her first post is of a letter sent by a teenage girl in Afghanistan in which the young girl expressed the fear of not being able to continue her education at school.
“Maybe we can go back to (the) last 20 years and again we have no rights. The life of all of us is dark. We all lost our freedom, and we are imprisoned again,” the letter read.
The actor said she joined Instagram to share such stories because the people in Afghanistan are not able to communicate and express themselves freely on social media. In less than 15 hours, she gained 4.5 million followers.
She also dubbed the US’s involvement with Afghanistan over the last two decades “a failure almost impossible to understand.”
In the post, she recalled meeting Afghan refugees who had escaped the Taliban at the border of Afghanistan two weeks before the September 11 attack by al-Qaeda terrorist group.
Angelina Jolie
“It is sickening to watch Afghans being displaced yet again out of fear and uncertainty that has gripped their country...Watching for decades how Afghan refugees - some of the most capable people in the world - are treated like a burden is also sickening. Knowing that if they had the tools and respect, how much they would do for themselves. And meeting so many women and girls who not only wanted an education, but fought for it,” she wrote, emphasising her commitment to help and encouraging others to join.
As the Taliban swiftly took control of Afghanistan, footage of people trying to escape the country have been doing rounds on the internet. Despite the Taliban assuring “women’s rights within the Islamic law,” female teachers and students are already being kept out of schools and universities.
Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai, who had survived a Taliban attack, has also expressed her concerns for the women under Taliban rule.
“We will have time to think about what went wrong in the war in Afghanistan, but in this critical moment, we must listen to the voices of Afghan women and girls,” she wrote in her essay for The New York Times.
Edited by Kanishk Singh
