Residence permits will be issued to seven female Afghan handball players seeking refuge in Pakistan after fleeing the Taliban regime, French Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin announced Tuesday.
After being questioned by French Communist party MP Soumya Bourouaha, Darmanin said France would grant the seven women “residence permits” and that “if they apply for asylum in France […], we hope that they will be able to find asylum on national territory.”
During a weekly public debate in the assembly where MPs question the government, Bourouaha noted that women’s rights have deteriorated sharply in Afghanistan. “Women are forbidden to go to school, to work, to travel without a man,” she said.
Additionally, the Taliban regime has banned high-level sportswomen from training through its nationwide implementation of Sharia law. On Monday, the regime announced it would “henceforth strictly apply Islamic law, thus signalling the return of executions, floggings, amputations and stonings in public,” explained Bourouaha.
The MP warned that “many top athletes are trying to flee Afghanistan every day to escape the repression.”
According to Bourouaha, “all the conditions have been met for them to be fully welcomed in France […] and all our [official] interlocutors have told us that they will act quickly to obtain a visa”. However, the seven women “have still not been contacted by the French embassy in Islamabad and are living in unworthy and unsafe conditions.”
Darmanin said that “discussions on security” are underway. This will be done quickly, and “we will be able not only to issue residence permits but also to contribute to their repatriation.”
(Davide Basso | EURACTIV.fr)
Source: euractiv.com
