Tonight the Taliban taking Kabul, Afghanistan's capital and last government stronghold. Three years ago, the Taliban retook control of Afghanistan, marking the end of the twenty year experiment of democracy. Seven Afghanist died and a frantic scramble at the Kabl airport. I was seeing them in Humbis with Kalashnikov's guarding the entrances to buildings.
Keith junctures roadblocks around the city.
From his new home in Adelaide, Australia, Muzafa Ali watched warlords returning to the places he loved.
It took less than three months for the Taliban to capture all Afghanistan. Afghanistan has thirty four provinces. One by one, it fall like Domino. So we had restless days and sleepless nights and wet eyes. As I saw the Kundi province where my wife and I got married, it collapsed under the Taliban on the fourteenth of August. And then Bamyan collapsed, the most beautiful place in Afghanistan where my
daughter was born. It was so painful to see that Taliban are roaming around in those streets where we spend the best time of our life in Afghanistan.
After the fall of Kabul, Western journalists started describing Khalm on the streets and there are signs of normalcy creeping back onto the streets.
The Taliban announced the government workers foreign journalists who were stuck in Kabul. That really bothered me. Why our stories are told by someone who has limited knowledge about Afghanistan. It was raving salt on our wounds to see that because the Taliban, they don't care about people's life.
Mozafha felt that the reality of life under the Taliban was overlooked, so last month he decided to go back to his home country at great personal cost, and what he saw gave him hope. Girls and women risking their lives to be edgy catered, teachers, defying the Taliban, and in Afghanistan never shown to outsiders from Schwartz Media. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am today, as we mark the third anniversary of the fall of Kabul, Photographer and
human rights activist mozafh Ali shows us he's Afghanistan. It's Wednesday, August fourteenth. Well, first of all, Masipah, thank you so much for talking to me today, for coming on the show.
Thank you very much for having me. It's a pleasure to talk to you.
So, Mozifah, you fled the Taliban more than a decade ago. Can you tell me what life was like at the time and why you decided to leave.
So. I'm from Oriskan Province. I'm a Hasara and I worked in Afghanistan in the United Nations for seven years as political analyst. Honestly, my displacement is involuntary. I was happy in Afghanistan. I got a chance to study in Europe or settle in America, but several times I refused to leave my country. From my experience the Taliban, they are a terrorist group who don't care about the people's life and the rights of the people. When I joined you in two thousand and five, they hit my car
by an ied. My driver slowed down at the speed and that's where the huge bank happened, and it got dark. I could see these big pebbles and filing on the car, and I was just stunned and sitting right in the middle of this blast and thinking about myself. Am I alive? I looked at the driver, he looked at me, and we were just stunted and we couldn't say anything, and we couldn't believe where it's still alive. My friends got killed when I was working in the UN I know
said Muhammad was one of my friends. He was working with police and he was beheaded in Oroskan Province. There are so many examples, how many explosions I saw, how many friends I lost in Afghanistan and in Pakistan, as well as Taliban backed militants that killed a lot of Hazaras.
So given that, given that the Taliban had tried to kill you in the past and had targeted your family, and that they had killed some of your friends, had headed one of your friends, how did you wei all of that up when you were deciding to go back? Were you frightened?
Absolutely? I went to Afghanistan in July after a couple of years for only thinking should I go or not? But I finally got a decision that I will go, and I will go prepared and I will have a purpose in my mind. I got a permission from my wife, I talked with my daughters. Because I knew the risk entailed to this trip, I decided to keep my identity as low and obscure as possible. I stopped using social
media six months ago. My digital footprints were limited everywhere, and I kept this secret just to minimize any possibility of Taliban recognizing me and arresting me. I was just another person in Afghanistan, another Hazara in Afghanistan where I observed quietly what is happening in the streets. But that was definitely a risky trip where Taliban stopped me three times. They interrogated me three times, but I escaped alive.
Why did they stop you and what happened?
So when I bought my camera from Adelaide, my friend who was a prominent photographer in Afransan, he told me, Muzafre, you know, you need a license for your camera if you want to take photo, and you have to go to Taliban's Ministry of Art and Culture to get their permission. So they are scared of camera. Actually they don't allow
people to take photos in these streets. And even if someone is making a video, so if he posts this video on internet like YouTube or on social media, he will be responsible for consequences because Taliban don't want any images or any video without their permission. I was really shocked to hear that, but I was carrying my camera concealed in my bag and with a hope that I would find someplace to take some photos. But then I
was stopped in Orosgan where the Taliban. I was going to a mountain where in Orozgan host District where a Taliban stopped me. He said, what is this? I was just thinking, maybe he doesn't know what camera is. I said, this is not a camera, this is a binocular. He was surprised. He said, what kind of binocular is this? I haven't seen anything like this, So I had to skip past him and I just left quickly before he would come and see that it's actually a camera, not a binocular.
That's very fast thinking.
Yeah, and the lesson I learned was that yes, it is really dangerous to carry a tem in Afghanistan.
After the break illegal schools and graveyard picnics, the ordinary people resisting Taliban rule was value. You returned to your home country with your camera because you wanted to document what Western journalists miss about life under the Taliban. So where did you go and who did you speak to?
I will be very careful about the exact locations of my trip, where I went and the real identities of those people that I met.
That's to protect them, just to protect.
Them, to keep them safe. I spent one week in Kabul and that's where I visited several underground schools. So before Taliban's takeover, these schools were openly providing education. But since Taliban came in their decree that the girls are not allowed to get high school education, so they from outside. They tend to provide primary school education for girls and high school education for boys, but in reality they also
provide high school education for girls as well. I went these places to see how the women are feeling under the Taliban regime. So I went to grade seven where there were about sixty students. I was really emotional because this year is my daughter's high school year. She's in her first year of high school in Adelaide. She's in grade seven, and when I saw grade seven students, that was really emotional for me to see that how lucky
my daughter is. She is thoroughly enjoying her freedom as a high school student in Australia, but this is not the case with girls of Afghanistan. The principle of that school said, we are providing education, but our education is considered illegal quote in court illegal. So I remember that the day when I visited, the principal told me that Taliban have summoned all private school principles in a mosque
for an important meeting. So after that meeting, I called this principle, I said, what was the message from the Taliban. He told me that the message was that the girls cannot get education in high school. So the principal should obey and follow that decree.
Right, So what is at stake for these girls and their teachers if they don't follow the decree.
At steak is their life. Actually, while I was working in the UN, we were receiving a lot of reports in Orozgan, in Hellman Province, in Kandahar that they were burning schools, they were killing teachers because traditionally Taliban are not in favor of girls and women to get education because they think they should be kept at home and
their duties and responsibilities are different from men. So yes, at one side we see the tragic incidents, the risks for the girls' education, But I'm more amazed with the resilience of these girls and women that as soon as their school is blown up, they come back, they restart their classes, even if they know that there is no pathway for them to pursue any career or become any independent woman. This message from them is that they're not giving up their hopes and they're refusing to give up
their dreams. Inside, they know that this is a basic human right, and they continue with this and they fight it. So I really salute these teachers who are doing everything to make sure these girls get education.
What did being in these schools and seeing these girls tell you about how girls and women in Afghanistan are responding to Taliban rule?
Yeah, Taliban have failed. I have seen it in kabble in the streets when Taliban bent women to come out of their home, at least this Hazara neighborhood in west of Kabul dash de Bachi. Hazara women don't care about this degree. They come out as normal as they can, with their beautiful traditional dresses cloth, they come out, they don't cover their face. And when I was in cable, literally for women where they were freely allowed to go
was the graveyard. I saw graveyards becoming picnic spot for the women where they would go pretending to be praying there for their loved ones. Of course they did, but they would take some food with them some snacks with them and other women would come and talk together. That was literally the only public place where the women were allowed to go. And some of them have small businesses. I saw one thirteen year old girl having an ice cream vendor near Taliban checkpost. That was a big hope
for me. I was just thinking, this is what we need, this is what the civil movements are, the grassroots movements are to defy Taliban. I think we have to focus on those individual heroes as well.
What do you think the main differences of our between the image that we get of Afghanistan from the outside and the place that you saw for yourself when you visited, That is.
A huge difference. My approach is that I show normal life of the people of Afghanistan. That is the significant majority of the people of Afghanistan, and they're beautiful. The places are beautiful. Naturally, the news and the media goes towards Violen's war, which could attract more attention, and I think we need to pay attention to the aspiration of the people as well. At the time where the truth is hard to tell, it's must to tell the truth. And I'm happy that I came back with all my
photographs intact safe, no one saw it. It's with me, of those schools, of those brave women teachers there with me, and we are here now commemorating the fall of Kabul the third year. And I would love to raise voice on behalf of those girls who are not allowed to get education, those people, the Hazaras who are suffering under the Taliban rule. I have all their photos and I want to be their voice.
Well, Muzpah, thank you so much for talking to me about your trip. I really appreciate it.
Thank you very much. Ruby.
Also in the news today, former Prime Minister Scott Morrison has testified at the defamation trial between WA Senator Linda Reynolds and her ex staffer Britney Higgins. Senator Reynolds is suing Miss Higgins over a series of social media posts which the senator claims damaged her reputation. Scott Morrison told the court that the Labor Party had weaponized miss higgins rape allegation and that he was forced to remove Senator Reynolds as Defense Minister over mental health concerns and after
a forty minute delay due to technical errors. Billionaire Elon Musk has hosted an interview with former US President Donald Trump on his social media website x. The live streamed conversation lasted over two hours, during which the pair discussed Trump's assassination attempt and Trump praised Elon Musk for laying off Tesla workers. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven AM.
See you tomorrow