i received a lot of messages from different friends and people from town that the taliban came to kabul, and most of my friends, they left their houses and they sent a text message to me that, where are you? i was in the airport. it was a really, really difficult time for me. now, kamila, you refer to your friend gayle, who helped make arrangements to get you out, and of course, gayle wrote the book the dressmaker of khair khana, which was about your extraordinary life as a young woman, you set up as a dressmaker and you then found a way to help other women in kabul living under the taliban in the 19905 to make a living out of sewing and dressmaking. yours is an extraordinary story you are, let s face it, a very famous afghan woman who has worked in government, you ve worked in business. do you think you wouldn t have got out, had you not had these contacts outside the country?
and afghan people. kamila sidiqi, i thank you so much for talking to us from bonn, in germany. thank you. you re welcome. thank you so much. hello. after what s been a relatively cloudy and relatively cool week so far for many of us, the weather is set to change a little bit through friday and into the weekend. it will briefly turn a little bit warmer. it will also start to turn a lot wetter because low pressure is pushing in from the west. this frontal system bringing rain very early on on friday
i think if we think about the future of afghanistan, all these leaders, like hamid karzai and amrullah saleh, everyone should come together and sit and discuss, and find some solution and work with taliban to have a strong government, because we really need to solve the afghanistan problem between all these leaders and afghan people. kamila sidiqi, i thank you so much for talking to us from bonn, in germany. thank you. you re welcome. thank you so much.
that they are especially women activists. majority of women activists are in kabul and they were not able to leave the country, i m so concerned about them. i received a lot of messages and a call from these people. i really try to help them. and my family is there and my father is there. i m really, really concerned, not only about my family, about my people, my people in afghanistan. i think it s very important to help them right now, that these people should leave from kabul. but, for the future of the country, it s not a solution that everybody left the country. i wish the international community and the world can support afghanistan to bring peace there and people can stay in their own country. kamila, i m sure you, like all of us, watched 2a hours ago, the senior taliban spokesman, zabiullah mujahid, guarantee respect for the rights of women.
welcome to hardtalk, i m stephen sackur. taliban leaders in kabul are engaged in careful message management amnesty for all, no safe haven for foreign fighters, and respect for the rights of women and girls, they say. but then the rider under their islamic law. now, it s too early to know what taliban governance 2.0 will look like, but it is clear many afghans are fearful. my guest is kamila sidiqi, a trail blazing women s activist, entrepreneur, and former government official in kabul. is her cause lost? and where does the blame lie?