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Ziauddin Yousafzai, father of Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai in response to Pakistan's Ambassador to UN Munir Akram's comments on Pashtuns said that his comments are "disgraceful" and he should apologize to 50 million Pashtuns in Pakistan, Afghanistan based News Agency Khaama Press reported.
Munir Akram had in a UN meeting said that the restrictions being put by the Taliban on Afghanistan flow not so much from a religious perspective as from a peculiar cultural perspective of the Pashtun culture. "And this is a peculiar, distinctive cultural reality of Afghanistan which has not changed for hundreds of years," Akram had said. Yousafzai in response said that the remarks of Pakistan's envoy to the UN are shameful and he should apologize to 50 million Pashtuns in Pakistan, Khaama Press reported "You did not even exist when Ghazi Amanullah Khan established girls' schools in Afghanistan in 1921," Yousafzai said. He added that Akram's comments are biased, and stated that four million girls were studying in schools and universities in Afghanistan, and thousands of girls' schools and universities are active in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Meanwhile, Nasir Ahmad Fayeeq Afghanistan Representative to the UN has said that restrictions on Afghan women and girls are rooted in "Taliban Culture", and it has nothing to do with the culture of Afghanistan, Khaama Press reported. Recently, Jessica Kroner for Peace for Asia, wrote that over a few years, the unrest in Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) has resulted in the securitization of the Pashtun identity and stereotyped the tribals as terrorists. The process began at the time of General Pervez Musharraf and continued with the security establishment's media influence campaigns. The Pakistan Army has abused its power and used the legal system and its control over the administrative levers to aggressively target the Pashtuns risking the inflammation of social divisions in the country. A large number of Pashtuns in September 2022, participated in a protest outside the United Nations to raise the human rights violations in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The demonstration was organised by the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM) during the ongoing 51st session of the UN Human Rights Council. The participants, including the Afghan Pashtuns, raised slogans decrying Pakistan for supporting terror groups and carrying out atrocities on the Pashtuns. (ANI)
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