Raza Sajjad

Since 2015, the ongoing Wahhabi war on Muslims has claimed over 300,000 lives in Yemen alone. This is after they collaborated with the British and other Europeans destroy the Ottoman empire and genocide its people. It is after they collaborated with the US and Israel to genocide the Iraqis. All of this resulted in millions of deaths. And yet they claim to be following Islam, and that they are the allies of Muslims.  This is what the ideology of Ibn Abd al-Wahhab looks like in practice - mass slaughter, bombed mosques, starving children, and levelled cities. The Wahhabi heritage is treachery, genocide, the unleashing upon the world of terrorist groups like ISIS.

The EU has invited Taliban officials to Brussels to discuss a migration deal — and today I am shaken and deeply disturbed by this. This is the same Taliban that banned girls from secondary schools and forced them into marriage. The same Taliban that, earlier this month, arrested dozens of women in Herat for how they were dressed. The same Taliban that detains, beats and executes women who dare to speak out or break their rules. Through its system of gender apartheid, the Taliban have erased women and girls from public life. Europe must not legitimise a regime responsible for one of the worst human rights crises in the world. Any engagement with the Taliban must begin and end with the rights of Afghan women and girls.