The Taliban issued a message on International Women’s Day, saying Afghan women live in security with their rights protected, even as the U.N. condemned ongoing employment and education bans.
Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021, they have barred education for women and girls beyond sixth grade, most employment, and many public spaces. Last August, the Vice and Virtue Ministry published laws that ban women’s voices and bare faces outside the home.
The Taliban’s chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid released a statement on his official X account, without specifically mentioning International Women’s Day, which is celebrated on March 8.
He said the dignity, honor, and legal rights of women were a priority for the Islamic emirate, the term used by the Taliban to describe their government.
Afghan women lived in security, both physically and psychologically, he added.
“In accordance with Islamic law and the culture and traditions of Afghan society, the fundamental rights of Afghan women have been secured. However, it should not be forgotten that the rights of Afghan women are being discussed within an Islamic and Afghan society, which has clear differences from Western societies and their culture,” said Mujahid.
Also Saturday, the U.N. renewed its call for the Taliban to lift the bans.
“The erasure of women and girls from public life cannot be ignored,” said Roza Otunbayeva, the head of the U.N. mission in Afghanistan. “We remain committed to investing in their resilience and leadership, as they are key to Afghanistan’s future.”
Alison Davidian, special representative for U.N. Women Afghanistan, said the world could not accept a future for Afghan women that would never be tolerated elsewhere.
“Our response to their erasure is a test of our commitment to women and girls everywhere,” said Davidian. “We must stand with Afghan women as if our own lives depend on it — because they do.”
The Taliban remain isolated from the West — and without international recognition as the country’s official government — because of their restrictions on women and girls.
The Afghanistan Journalists Support Organization said 893 women were currently employed in the media sector. That's a drop from 2,756 who were working before 2021, according to Reporters Without Borders.
There were nine provinces where there were no women in the media industry, the Afghan support organization said. The declining participation of female journalists, driven by the Taliban’s discriminatory policies, signalled a “concerted effort” to erase women from the media landscape, it said.
On Friday in Paris, UNESCO hosted a high-level conference on women and girls in Afghanistan. Participants included Hamida Aman, the founder of the women-only station Radio Begum, Fawzia Khoofi, a parliamentarian from the former Western-backed government, and rights experts including Richard Bennett, who is barred from entering Afghanistan.
In an apparent dig at the event, the spokesman for the Vice and Virtue Ministry Saif ul-Islam Khyber said recent international conferences held under the name of women’s rights exposed the hypocrisy of certain organizations and European Union foundations.
FILE - Afghan women wait to receive food rations distributed by a humanitarian aid group, in Kabul, Afghanistan, May 23, 2023. (AP Photo/Ebrahim Noroozi, File)
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — A Minnesota prosecutor on Friday called on members of the public to send any video or other evidence in the fatal shooting of Renee Good directly to local investigators, challenging the Trump administration's decision to leave the investigation solely to the FBI.
Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty said that although her office has collaborated effectively with the FBI in past cases, she is concerned by the Trump administration's decision to bar state and local agencies from playing any role in the investigation into Wednesday's killing of Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer in Minneapolis.
She also said the officer who shot Good in the head does not have complete legal immunity, as Vice President JD Vance declared.
“We do have jurisdiction to make this decision with what happened in this case,” Moriarty said at a news conference. “It does not matter that it was a federal law enforcement agent.”
Moriarty said her office would post a link for the public to submit footage of the shooting, even though she acknowledged that she wasn't sure what legal outcome submissions might produce.
The prosecutor's announcement came on a third day of Minneapolis protests over Good's killing and a day after federal immigration officers shot and wounded two people in Portland, Oregon.
Good's wife, Becca Good, released a statement to Minnesota Public Radio on Friday saying, “kindness radiated out of her.”
"On Wednesday, January 7th, we stopped to support our neighbors. We had whistles. They had guns," Becca Good said.
“I am now left to raise our son and to continue teaching him, as Renee believed, that there are people building a better world for him,” she wrote. “That the people who did this had fear and anger in their hearts, and we need to show them a better way.”
The reaction to the Good's shooting was immediate in the city where police killed George Floyd in 2020, with hundreds of protesters converging on the shooting scene and the school district canceling classes for the rest of the week as a precaution and offering an online option through Feb. 12.
On Thursday night, hundreds marched in freezing rain down one of Minneapolis’ major thoroughfares, chanting “ICE out now!” and holding signs saying, “Killer ice off our streets." And on Friday, protesters were outside a federal facility that is serving as a hub for the immigration crackdown that began Tuesday in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Authorities erected barricades outside the facility, and a small group of counter-demonstrators also showed up.
City workers, meanwhile, removed makeshift barricades made of Christmas trees and other debris that had been blocking the streets near the scene of Good's shooting. Officials said they would leave up a shrine to the 37-year-old mother of three.
The Portland shootings happened outside a hospital Thursday afternoon. Federal immigration officers shot and wounded a man and woman, identified by the Department of Homeland Security as Venezuela nationals Luis David Nico Moncada and Yorlenys Betzabeth Zambrano-Contreras, who were inside a vehicle, and their conditions weren't immediately known. The FBI and the Oregon Department of Justice were investigating.
Portland Mayor Keith Wilson and the city council called on ICE to end all operations in the city until a full investigation is completed. Hundreds protested Thursday night at a local ICE building. Early Friday, Portland police reported that officers had arrested several protesters after asking the to get out of a street to allow traffic to flow.
Just as it did following Good's shooting, DHS defended the actions of the officers in Portland, saying it occurred after a Venezuelan man with alleged gang ties and who was involved in a recent shooting tried to “weaponize” his vehicle to hit the officers. It wasn't immediately clear if the shootings were captured on video, as Good's was.
The Minneapolis shooting happened on the second day of the immigration crackdown in the Twin Cities, which Homeland Security said is the biggest immigration enforcement operation ever. More than 2,000 officers are taking part and Noem said they have made more than 1,500 arrests.
The government is also shifting immigration officers to Minneapolis from sweeps in Louisiana, according to documents obtained by The Associated Press. This represents a pivot, as the Louisiana crackdown that began in December had been expected to last into February.
Good's death — at least the fifth tied to immigration sweeps since Trump took office — has resonated far beyond Minneapolis, with protests happening in Texas, California, Detroit and elsewhere and hundreds of others planned for this weekend, according to Indivisible, a group formed to resist the Trump administration.
“This is hitting people who previously were not engaged,” said co-executive director Ezra Levin, adding that he’s seen a rise in veterans, rural Americans and some Republican voters speaking critically about the shooting.
Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, President Donald Trump and others in his administration have repeatedly characterized the Minneapolis shooting as an act of self-defense and cast Good as a villain, suggesting she used her vehicle as a weapon to attack the officer who shot her.
Several bystanders captured video of Good's killing, which happened in a neighborhood south of downtown. Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey said videos show that any self-defense argument is “garbage.”
The recordings show an officer approaching an SUV stopped across the middle of the road, demanding the driver open the door and grabbing the handle. The Honda Pilot begins to pull forward and a different ICE officer standing in front of it pulls his weapon and immediately fires at least two shots at close range, jumping back as the vehicle moves toward him.
It is not clear from the videos if the vehicle makes contact with the officer, and there is no indication of whether the woman had interactions with agents earlier. After the shooting, the SUV speeds into two cars parked on a curb before crashing to a stop.
The federal agent who fatally shot Good is an Iraq War veteran who has served for nearly two decades in the Border Patrol and ICE, according to records obtained by AP.
Noem has not publicly named him, but a Homeland Security spokesperson said her description of his injuries last summer refers to an incident in Bloomington, Minnesota, in which court documents identify him as Jonathan Ross.
Ross got his arm stuck in the window of a vehicle whose driver was fleeing arrest on an immigration violation. Ross was dragged and fired his Taser. A jury found the driver guilty of assaulting a federal officer with a dangerous weapon.
Attempts to reach Ross, 43, at phone numbers and email addresses associated with him were not successful.
Associated Press reporters Steve Karnowski and Mark Vancleave in Minneapolis; Ed White in Detroit; Valerie Gonzalez in Brownsville, Texas; Graham Lee Brewer in Norman, Oklahoma; Michael Biesecker in Washington; Jim Mustian and Safiyah Riddle in New York; Ryan Foley in Iowa City, Iowa; and Hallie Golden in Seattle contributed.
Supporters of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement rally outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)
Minneapolis Public Schools families, educators and students hold signs during a news conference at Lake Hiawatha Park in Minneapolis, on Friday, Jan. 9, 2026, demanding Immigration and Customs Enforcement be kept out of schools and Minnesota following the killing of 37-year-old mother Renee Good by federal agents earlier on Wednesday. (Kerem Yücel/Minnesota Public Radio via AP)
A supporter of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement argues with a counter protester outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)
Protesters confront law enforcement outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)
Protesters' shadows are cast on the street near law enforcement outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)
Protesters confront law enforcement outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026.(AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)
An American flag burns outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility on Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Two protesters are lit by a police light as they walk outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility on Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Protesters are arrested by federal agents outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building in Minneapolis, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)
Protesters sit on a barrier that is being assembled outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building as protesters gather in Minneapolis, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)
Protesters stand off against law enforcement outside the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Portland, Ore., Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Jenny Kane)
Demonstrators protest outside the White House in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agent who fatally shot Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
Protesters chant and march during a rally for Renee Good, who was fatally shot by an ICE officer the day before, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/John Locher)
Protesters gather during a rally for Renee Good, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis, after she was fatally shot by an ICE officer the day before. (AP Photo/Adam Bettcher)
Protesters confront federal agents outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)
People gather around a makeshift memorial honoring the victim of a fatal shooting involving federal law enforcement agents, near the site of the shooting, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)
U.S. Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino arrives as protesters gather outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)
A protester pours water in their eye after confronting law enforcement outside the Bishop Henry Whipple Federal Building, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis, Minn. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)
People gather around a makeshift memorial honoring the victim of a fatal shooting involving federal law enforcement agents, near the site of the shooting, Thursday, Jan. 8, 2026, in Minneapolis. (AP Photo/Tom Baker)
