A young women’s rights activist from Afghanistan recently left the country and travelled to Iran.
Women in both countries have few rights – but the activist told Sky News that when she arrived she saw a massive difference between the two places.
That was until Iranian women revealed how they suffered under the Islamic Republic’s regime.
We are keeping the activist anonymous to protect her safety. This is her story:
Almost three years of living in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime has systemically erased me and my fellow Afghan women from public life.
During this time, I struggled with deep depression and mental health crises, like countless women in the country.
There was no hope my situation would improve so my brother urged me to go travelling with him.
For most of people in Afghanistan, there are two countries we can travel to – Pakistan and Iran.
But because I’m a women’s rights activist and there has been a women’s revolution in Iran after the death of Mahsa Amini, I chose to go to Iran.
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Image: Mahsa Amini. Pic: Reuters
In the first days of our arrival, I could see women everywhere – in the streets, schools, universities, parks, restaurants – free to wear and do what they want at any time.
One day, I went to a beauty salon in the Mashhad area of Iran.
When I entered, there was a woman who just entered the salon before me. She was crying and all the women in the salon were welcoming her with tears and open hugs.
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Waiting for my turn, I got more information about Sapideh. She was a well-known client of the salon for years.
She had lost her father recently – her only parent – and had been at home overcoming her grief and loss. It sounded like she didn’t have any other family or friends to support her in this difficult time.
The ladies in the beauty salon listened to her words and cries and everyone did their best to comfort her.
When I was leaving, I could see that three women were working on her face, hair, and nails. She had stopped crying.
Image: Iranian women on a street in Tehran as new hijab surveillance was implemented last year. Pic: Reuters
In Afghanistan, beauty salons – the small spaces that allow women to help and support each other – are all closed.
On my way to the hotel, I saw women driving, or women without hijab who were free – and my mind could only think of Afghan women.
Because we are used to it, we don’t know that our rights and our freedoms have been stolen from us.
Image: The Taliban have dramatically curtailed the rights of women and girls since they regained power. Pic: AP
During those first days, I was constantly comparing our situation with Iranian women – I couldn’t find any similarity between our struggles, even though both countries can be described as having gender apartheid regimes.
In Afghanistan, women are fighting for basic human rights that we are denied, but Iranian women already appear to have them all.
Image: Women in Afghanistan. Pic: Reuters
Iranian women are suffering but I wasn’t able to see that as I am one of the millions of Afghan women who are subject to suffering, oppression, and pain.
Meeting Tranom, a young Iranian teenager, in the bathroom of a shopping mall, changed my mind.
Tranom, who was 16, had short purple hair, no hijab, and was wearing a T-shirt and jeans. She told me that when she had a proper hijab, she had been arrested three times.
“It was too bad for a woman to be arrested in my society but now I’m not scared anymore. I wear what I want,” she said.
Image: A young women films during a protest in Iran in October 2022
When I was in Tehran, I met Zari, a construction engineering student.
We discussed my first impressions of Iran. Zari said that the regime is mostly targeting the young generation of Iranians.
Areas that have more young people also have more trouble and tensions.
“You might have not seen the vans of Gasht-a Ershad, the Iranian morality police, in other areas but you can see one of them in [the] neighbourhood where the university is located and the parks where female and male students go,” said Zari.
Young Iranian women, especially students, are oppressed every day under the pretext that their hijab is not worn correctly, I learned from Zari.
When I travelled with my brother to Kish Island, in southern Iran, I met Fatima, a teacher who was there with her daughter and husband.
She spoke about a deep mental health crisis and depression among Iranian women.
Image: A couple watch swimmers on Kish Island. Pic: Reuters
While we were sitting on the beach of the Persian Gulf, she asked me to watch each woman who was passing in front of us.
She told me that Kish Island is one of the most expensive places in the country – many Iranians dream of visiting. The people here are the wealthy of Iran, she says.
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Meet the women living in a warzone
“When you are looking at women, you see they wear expensive clothes and they have plastic surgery and sometimes heavy make-up,” said Fatima.
“But none of them are happy because they have been oppressed by the regime. Because they are not free.”
“The fear from the morality police [is that they] never leave them alone. They all are aware of countless young women who have been arrested under the hijab pretext, and they have been raped, tortured, killed and disappeared. We all are alive but we are not living.”
Gender apartheid must be codified as a crime against humanity – let all Afghan and Iranian women live free.
On World Press Freedom Day, our contributor’s story shows there is no freedom for Afghan women
There is so much that is revealing about this young Afghan woman’s observations and comparisons with life for women in Iran.
And so much that is tragically sad too.
After more than two years of oppressive restrictions, she’s almost inured to them.
She’s horribly aware she’s lost a lot but like an old photograph, the memories of those “freedoms” are fading.
She almost casually mentions how her brother accompanies her to Iran for a “holiday” – a trip possible after obtaining a Taliban permit allowing her to go but only if she is escorted by her mahram or blood relative who acts as her chaperone (in this case, her brother).
Even beyond the country’s borders, the long arm of the Afghan Taliban stretches and curtails.
How restrictive this is for women with no male relatives or who are living with those who wield dominant control.
She observes how women in a regime considered one of the most restrictive in the world appear almost blessed compared to Afghan women.
Those in Iran have the one “freedom” cruelly denied to her and her fellow Afghan women: being able to learn.
In Afghanistan today, women cannot freely work, walk, or wear what and wherever they want.
She visits a beauty salon in Iran and is delighted to see women supporting others.
They were once female-only safe havens for Afghan women – where women sought support, comfort and exchanged ideas.
But this too was deemed unacceptable in Afghanistan under the Taliban.
They figured the salons may have been where women plotted their protest marches.
Now women spend days, weeks and months locked away in their homes, too scared, too intimidated or simply unable to leave without breaking the Taliban code.
Access to parks is restricted to certain days, the sexes segregated entirely but also the ability to talk and mix with other women has been inevitably curtailed.
The vast bulk of female journalists have had to stop work since the Taliban seized power in 2021.
Some fled the country and are in exile. Others fled underground – and write secretly and anonymously – like our contributor.
There is no World Press Freedom Day for female Afghan journalists and without media freedom, there is no freedom for Afghanistan.
The court ruled to uphold the impeachment saying the conservative leader “violated his duty as commander-in-chief by mobilising troops” when he declared martial law.
The president was also said to have taken actions “beyond the powers provided in the constitution”.
Image: Demonstrators stayed overnight near the constitutional court. Pic: AP
Supporters and opponents of the president gathered in their thousands in central Seoul as they awaited the ruling.
The 64-year-old shocked MPs, the public and international allies in early December when he declared martial law, meaning all existing laws regarding civilians were suspended in place of military law.
Image: The court was under heavy police security guard ahead of the announcement. Pic: AP
After suddenly declaring martial law, Mr Yoon sent hundreds of soldiers and police officers to the National Assembly.
He has argued that he sought to maintain order, but some senior military and police officers sent there have told hearings and investigators that Mr Yoon ordered them to drag out politicians to prevent an assembly vote on his decree.
His presidential powers were suspended when the opposition-dominated assembly voted to impeach him on 14 December, accusing him of rebellion.
The unanimous verdict to uphold parliament’s impeachment and remove Mr Yoon from office required the support of at least six of the court’s eight justices.
South Korea must hold a national election within two months to find a new leader.
Lee Jae-myung, leader of the main liberal opposition Democratic Party, is the early favourite to become the country’s next president, according to surveys.
While the UK’s FTSE 100 closed down 1.55% and the continent’s STOXX Europe 600 index was down 2.67% as of 5.30pm, it was American traders who were hit the most.
All three of the US’s major markets opened to sharp losses on Thursday morning.
Image: The S&P 500 is set for its worst day of trading since the COVID-19 pandemic. File pic: AP
By 8.30pm UK time (3.30pm EST), The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down 3.7%, the S&P 500 opened with a drop of 4.4%, and the Nasdaq composite was down 5.6%.
Compared to their values when Donald Trump was inaugurated, the three markets were down around 5.6%, 8.7% and 14.4%, respectively, according to LSEG.
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Worst one-day losses since COVID
As Wall Street trading ended at 9pm in the UK, two indexes had suffered their worst one-day losses since the COVID-19 pandemic.
The S&P 500 fell 4.85%, the Nasdaq dropped 6%, and the Dow Jones fell 4%.
It marks Nasdaq’s biggest daily percentage drop since March 2020 at the start of COVID, and the largest drop for the Dow Jones since June 2020.
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‘Trust in President Trump’
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN earlier in the day that Mr Trump was “doubling down on his proven economic formula from his first term”.
“To anyone on Wall Street this morning, I would say trust in President Trump,” she told the broadcaster, adding: “This is indeed a national emergency… and it’s about time we have a president who actually does something about it.”
Later, the US president told reporters as he left the White House that “I think it’s going very well,” adding: “The markets are going to boom, the stock is going to boom, the country is going to boom.”
He later said on Air Force One that the UK is “happy” with its tariff – the lowest possible levy of 10% – and added he would be open to negotiations if other countries “offer something phenomenal”.
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Economist warns of ‘spiral of doom’
The turbulence in the markets from Mr Trump’s tariffs “just left everybody in shock”, Garrett Melson, portfolio strategist at Natixis Investment Managers Solutions in Boston, told Reuters.
He added that the economy could go into recession as a result, saying that “a lot of the pain, will probably most acutely be felt in the US and that certainly would weigh on broader global growth as well”.
Meanwhile, chief investment officer at St James’s Place Justin Onuekwusi said that international retaliation is likely, even as “it’s clear countries will think about how to retaliate in a politically astute way”.
He warned: “Significant retaliation could lead to a tariff ‘spiral of doom’ that could be the growth shock that drags us into recession.”
It comes as the UK government published a long list of US products that could be subject to reciprocal tariffs – including golf clubs and golf balls.
Running to more than 400 pages, the list is part of a four-week-long consultation with British businesses and suggests whiskey, jeans, livestock, and chemical components.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said on Thursday that the US president had launched a “new era” for global trade and that the UK will respond with “cool and calm heads”.
It also comes as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced a 25% tariff on all American-imported vehicles that are not compliant with the US-Mexico-Canada trade deal.
He added: “The 80-year period when the United States embraced the mantle of global economic leadership, when it forged alliances rooted in trust and mutual respect and championed the free and open exchange of goods and services, is over. This is a tragedy.”
Donald Trump has announced a 10% trade tariff on all imports from the UK – as he unleashed sweeping tariffs across the globe.
Speaking at a White House event entitled “Make America Wealthy Again”, the president held up a chart detailing the worst offenders – which also showed the new tariffs the US would be imposing.
“This is Liberation Day,” he told a cheering audience of supporters, while hitting out at foreign “cheaters”.
He claimed “trillions” of dollars from the “reciprocal” levies he was imposing on others’ trade barriers would provide relief for the US taxpayer and restore US jobs and factories.
Mr Trump said the US has been “looted, pillaged, raped, plundered” by other nations.
Image: Pic: AP
His first tariff announcement was a 25% duty on all car imports from midnight – 5am on Thursday, UK time.
Mr Trump confirmed the European Union would face a 20% reciprocal tariff on all other imports. China’s rate was set at 34%.
The UK’s rate of 10% was perhaps a shot across the bows over the country’s 20% VAT rate, though the president’s board suggested a 10% tariff imbalance between the two nations.
It was also confirmed that further US tariffs were planned on some individual sectors including semiconductors, pharmaceuticals and critical mineral imports.
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The ramping up of duties promises to be painful for the global economy. Tariffs on steel and aluminium are already in effect.
The UK government signalled there would be no immediate retaliation.
Business and Trade Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said: “We will always act in the best interests of UK businesses and consumers. That’s why, throughout the last few weeks, the government has been fully focused on negotiating an economic deal with the United States that strengthens our existing fair and balanced trading relationship.
“The US is our closest ally, so our approach is to remain calm and committed to doing this deal, which we hope will mitigate the impact of what has been announced today.
“We have a range of tools at our disposal and we will not hesitate to act. We will continue to engage with UK businesses including on their assessment of the impact of any further steps we take.
“Nobody wants a trade war and our intention remains to secure a deal. But nothing is off the table and the government will do everything necessary to defend the UK’s national interest.”
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The EU has pledged to retaliate, which is a problem for Northern Ireland.
Should that scenario play out, the region faces the prospect of rising prices because all its imports are tied to EU rules under post-Brexit trading arrangements.
It means US goods shipped to Northern Ireland would be subject to the EU’s reprisals.
The impact of a trade war would be expected to be widely negative, with tit-for-tat tariffs risking job losses, a ramping up of prices and cooling of global trade.
Research for the Institute for Public Policy Research has suggested more than 25,000 direct jobs in the UK car manufacturing industry alone could be at risk from the tariffs on car exports to the US.
The Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT) had said the tariff costs could not be absorbed by manufacturers and may lead to a review of output.
The tariffs now on UK exports pose a big risk to growth and the so-called headroom Chancellor Rachel Reeves was forced to restore to the public finances at the spring statement, risking further spending cuts or tax rises ahead to meet her fiscal rules.
A member of the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), David Miles, told MPs on Tuesday that US tariffs at 20% or 25% maintained on the UK for five years would “knock out all the headroom the government currently has”.
But he added that a “very limited tariff war” that the UK stays out of could be “mildly positive”.
He said: “There’s a bit of trade that will get diverted to the UK, and some of the exports from China, for example, that would have gone to the US, they’ll be looking for a home for them in the rest of the world.
“And stuff would be available in the UK a bit cheaper than otherwise would have been. So there is one, not central scenario at all, which is very, very mildly potentially positive to the UK. All the other ones which involve the UK facing tariffs are negative, and they’re negative to very different extents.”