New Film
Our Face Tells: Seeing the Genocide of Hazaras in Afghanistan
This short documentary calls for attention to the genocide of the Hazara people and the oppression of Hazara women. Interviews with remarkable Hazara women, including the first female mayor of Afghanistan, provide insight into how Hazara women continue to resist the Taliban and call out for support from the global community.
Recognize Hazara Genocide Now
Message for October 8 Worldwide Protest #StopHazaraGenocide
“I’m Zareen Taj and I’m on my way to Washington DC to join people around the world who are protesting to demand recognition of the ongoing genocide of Hazara in Afghanistan. I am making this video to explain what genocide is and why it applies to the long history of systematic killings of Hazara.
We are calling attention to this now because last week, on September 30th, a suicide bomber attacked hundreds of students taking exams in the Dasht-e-Barchi of Kabul. Over 50 young people were killed, most of them girls. Many more were injured. As we mourn we need more than sympathy — we need the formal recognition that these systematic attacks against Hazara are genocide.”
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Taliban Gender Apartheid: Genocide of Hazara Women
GENOCIDE WATCH — After the first arrest on January 4, 2024, the Taliban have imposed strict dress code rules on women and girls across Afghanistan. Hazara women, as part of a persecuted minority in Afghanistan, are especially vulnerable to this enforcement of gender rules. Testimonies of Hazara women who were arrested for dress code violations…
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The U.S. Has a Moral Obligation Toward Afghan Women
MS. MAGAZINE — Under Taliban control, the situation for Afghan women has become dire as they suffer the ongoing loss of basic rights and freedoms. Control of the Taliban has been disproportionately unbearable for Hazara women, who throughout history have suffered the double oppression of being both women and part of an ethnic minority…
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Voices from Kabul, Afghanistan: “You Can Take Our Lives, But Not Our Education”
MS. MAGAZINE — Monday morning, I received more than 40 pictures and six video clips from the horrific mass killing of innocent Hazara girls in Kabul on Saturday…
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The Cost of U.S. Withdrawal From Afghanistan: “Get Ready. The Taliban Are Coming.”
MS. MAGAZINE — I am painfully following the steady drip of news regarding the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan by the 20th anniversary of the September 11 attacks. The news seems to run in a loop in the back my mind—along with the images of the five massacre sites I recorded firsthand, from my…
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The Cost of a Peace Deal With the Taliban: Ignoring Concerns of Minority Women
MS. MAGAZINE — On May 15, the maternity ward of Dasht-e-Barchi Hospital, just west of Kabul, was the center of horrific attacks. The Taliban went there to kill mothers and newborn babies—the majority of whom were Hazara. The horrific images of babies and mothers shocked my soul, and made me numb. I felt so powerless…
Event
Documentarian Zareen Taj & Global Studies (UMBC)
Please join Global Studies visiting lecturer, advocate, author, and filmmaker Zareen Taj and the student filmmakers of GLBL 409: Documentary Film as Global Activism for a presentation of student documentaries and their reflections.
Advocate, Author, Speaker, & Filmmaker
About Zareen Taj
Zareen Taj came to the United States in 2000, once her activism placed her under threat by the Taliban during their first reign of power. She continued her advocacy in the United States and entered academia, where she has since been invited to speak at multiple conferences and written numerous public articles about Afghanistan. In 2004, she became the first Afghan woman to visit the five largest Hazara massacre sites during her work to interview survivors and produce her thesis and a video documentary. Her 2008 Master’s thesis was the first academic writing focused on Hazara women’s identities and oppression in Afghanistan.
Her work appears in the short film Oppression of Hazara in Afghanistan (2008), her book Journey to Empowerment: Women After the Taliban, and in the groundbreaking feminist magazine Ms. Magazine.
Zareen is a current PhD student at the Language, Literacy and Culture program and Visiting Lecturer with Global Studies at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.