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“I’m very hurt. This shows India’s priorities, because at some point, India and the Taliban would have agreed that female journalists would not be a part of the meeting. At some point, India did concede to the Taliban on something that is not even a part of our own values as a country,” said journalist Arpan Rai, about the blatant discrimination that women reporters faced at the presser of a Taliban official.
Women journalists were barred from entering the press conference addressed by Taliban-controlled Afghanistan’s Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi at the Afghanistan Embassy in New Delhi on Friday, October 10.
“Ahead of the press meet, I called the Afghan Embassy requesting to cover it. I told the Embassy officials that I have been covering Afghanistan for four years. They told me that a list had been handed to them and entry would be strictly restricted to those on the list,” Arpan said. She still went to the Embassy in the hope of securing entry, but was blocked by security staff.
According to women journalists who went to the Embassy for the presser on Friday, two security officials held a list of 10-12 invited journalists and allowed only them to enter the compound. It was only a while later that those left behind understood that it was only the women who were excluded. In fact, a woman correspondent from an international media house had even covered her hair with a shawl, hoping that her attire would not hinder her from attending the meeting.
Women journalists who stood outside the Embassy told TNM that they tried to contact India’s Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to obtain entry to the press conference, but were turned down. “The MEA told us it was the Embassy that decided the list, but the Embassy told us that it was not them,” a woman journalist said.
Arpan said that this was the first time in her career that she was denied entry to a presser despite showing up with her identity card. She said that she had been in touch with the MEA ever since Muttaqi’s visit was announced. “I’ve been telling the MEA for a while that I want to cover the visit. I was only given one word answers — No.”
She further said, “It is a landmark visit in its own ways, please let us cover it. You have a UN-sanctioned terrorist coming to the country, who you are counting on for regional cooperation. It doesn't make sense that you don't let journalists be a part of press conferences. I haven't seen this anywhere else in the world.”
“We would have done our job, our basic journalistic duty. We would have asked the Taliban minister about security, regional cooperation and of course about women’s education. Except, we were not even allowed near him,” Arpan said.
Journalist Smita Sharma, who has been covering foreign affairs for many years, told TNM that those invited to the select briefing received calls from the Afghan side, some of them from the Afghan consulate general in Mumbai, who is a Taliban appointee. "When the press conference began, it was evident that only male journalists had been invited to the room. The embassy in Delhi is run by a Chargé d'affaires appointed by the previously ousted democratic government and doesn’t recognise the Taliban," she said.
Talking to Smita Sharma on her YouTube channel, journalist Nayanima Basu said, “Let’s give the MEA the benefit of the doubt and assume that they didn’t know about the male-only list. But what is stopping them from issuing a normal statement now, even if an anodyne one acknowledging that whatever happened is not desirable and it won’t be repeated in the future. We haven’t heard even that from the MEA.”
Smita echoed this view, telling TNM, "The MEA has denied any involvement with the press meet yesterday. But now that this is public knowledge, will the MEA condemn this act? Otherwise, it will set a precedent for future press meets, especially since more Taliban leaders are likely to visit India as New Delhi updates its ties."
Condemning the exclusion of women journalists, Editors Guild of India stated, “While diplomatic premises may claim protection under the Vienna Convention, that cannot justify blatant gender discrimination in press access on Indian soil. Whether or not the MEA coordinated the event, it is deeply troubling that such a discriminatory exclusion was allowed to proceed without objection.” Addressing journalists, the statement also added, “The absence of solidarity in pointing this discriminatory practice at the event signals a troubling complacency in our community.”
Meanwhile, during his visit to the Darul Uloom Deoband Islamic seminary in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur district on Saturday, Taliban minister Muttaqi said that his delegation had not denied women journalists entry to Friday's presser.