RASC News Agency: The Purple Saturdays Movement, led by women’s rights activist Maryam Marouf Arwin, has issued an open letter to global organizations calling for the recognition of the Taliban’s “linguistic apartheid” against the Persian-Dari language in Afghanistan. In their letter addressed to the United Nations, the UN Human Rights Committee, UNESCO, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International, the movement urges immediate action to uphold the “linguistic and cultural rights of Persian speakers in Afghanistan.”
The Purple Saturdays Movement has also called upon Iran, Tajikistan, and other Persian-speaking nations to break their “silence” regarding this “blatant violation of cultural rights” and the Taliban’s hostility toward the Persian language. They urge these countries to take effective and meaningful measures to combat the “linguistic apartheid” imposed on the Persian-Dari language in Afghanistan.
The protesting women within this movement demand that the international community impose cultural sanctions against the Taliban, refraining from inviting them to cultural and literary gatherings. They warn that the “linguistic apartheid” against the Persian-Dari language could lead to significant cultural and social crises not only for Afghanistan but for the entire region. Meanwhile, the ruling group is not only alien to the Persian-Dari language but also openly hostile toward it. Persian is the language of the majority of the Afghanistan population and serves as a unifying factor among all ethnic groups in the country. Reports indicate that the Taliban is actively working to eliminate the Persian language from official government communications and documentation in Afghanistan.
