RASC News Agency: Multiple credible sources in Kabul have reported disturbing allegations against Enayatullah Khwarazmi, the spokesperson for the Taliban’s Ministry of Defense, accusing him of making unsolicited and inappropriate marriage proposals to several female journalists. This alleged misconduct has exacerbated fears of gender-based harassment within Taliban-run institutions and triggered a quiet yet growing exodus of women journalists from reporting on security-related affairs. According to sources who spoke on condition of anonymity due to fear of retaliation, Khwarazmi contacted several female reporters directly bypassing official channels and initiated personal conversations under the pretense of media engagement. During these communications, he reportedly portrayed himself as a “modern” and “progressive” figure within the Taliban hierarchy, only to later steer the conversation toward marriage proposals, which the journalists viewed as deeply inappropriate and intimidating.
The overtly personal and unprofessional nature of these advances has left many of the affected journalists distressed and disillusioned. Several have since opted to withdraw from assignments related to Taliban institutions, particularly the Ministry of Defense, in an attempt to shield themselves from further psychological harm or professional compromise. Others, fearing reprisals from Taliban authorities, have chosen to remain silent refusing to report the matter even to their own editors. Media managers familiar with the issue have, in some cases, acknowledged the existence of these complaints behind closed doors. However, the pervasive climate of fear under Taliban rule and the regime’s unrelenting hostility toward press freedom have deterred newsrooms from taking formal or public action.
These allegations emerge at a time when women in Afghanistan are already grappling with extreme repression. Since their return to power in August 2021, the Taliban have launched a calculated and systematic campaign to erase women from public life. Female journalists have been banned from appearing on television, barred from reporting in the field, and driven out of most government and non-government workplaces. In the media sector, women’s presence has been decimated by institutional restrictions, intimidation, and fear. This case is not isolated. There have been multiple reports circulated through social media and verified by independent observers documenting senior Taliban officials engaging in serial marriages, including multiple unions within a single calendar year. Such behavior sharply contradicts the group’s performative claims of moral and religious rectitude. While the Taliban continue to enforce their version of “Islamic values” with brutal consistency on the broader population, their inner circle appears to operate with near-total impunity, protected by their ideological monopoly and armed control.
These allegations against Khwarazmi serve as yet another indicator of the Taliban’s deeply entrenched hypocrisy where power is not only centralized but wielded as a tool of male dominance, coercion, and patriarchal impunity. What should have been a secure and dignified profession for Afghanistani women has become a dangerous minefield, where the threat of harassment now exists alongside censorship, surveillance, and exclusion. Women’s rights activists, journalists in exile, and international watchdogs have condemned the Taliban’s systematic targeting of women in the media, warning that the regime is using both institutional policies and personal intimidation to forcibly remove women from public discourse.
As the Taliban continue to erode the last remnants of civil society in Afghanistan, the international community must urgently confront the double standards, gender apartheid, and coercive tactics that now define Taliban governance. The silence surrounding cases like this one reflects not just the fear of individuals, but the terrifying normalization of misogyny under a regime that conflates moral authority with unchecked power.
