New Delhi: Putting to rest a controversy over the absence of women journalists at his media interaction two days back, Afghan Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi on Sunday said there was no intention behind it.
Muttaqi said this during a second press conference in three days in New Delhi that was attended by several women journalists.
The Afghan foreign minister came under severe attack from India’s opposition parties and journalists for “excluding” women press persons from his media interaction on Friday.
Editors Guild of India and the Indian Women Press Corps (IWPC) called the act highly discriminatory, which cannot be justified, citing the diplomatic privilege under the Vienna Convention.
“While diplomatic premises may claim protection under the Vienna Convention, that cannot justify blatant gender discrimination in press access on Indian soil,” the guild said. “Whether or not the MEA coordinated the event, it is deeply troubling that such a discriminatory exclusion was allowed to proceed without objection,” they added.
A free and inclusive press must defend representation, not enable exclusion,” the statement read.
Opposition leaders had also questioned the center for the exclusion of women at the event. Congress leader Rahul Gandhi said, “When you allow the exclusion of women journalists from a public forum, you are telling every woman in India that you are too weak to stand up for them.”
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra called it an “insult to some of India’s most competent women being allowed in our country”.
Former Union Minister P Chidambaram also said that the male journalists who attended should have walked out of the event when they found out that women journalists were excluded. “I am shocked that women journalists were excluded from the press conference addressed by Amir Khan Muttaqi of Afghanistan. In my personal view, the men journalists should have walked out when they found that their women colleagues were excluded (or not invited),” he said in a post on X.
Following the backlash, Muttaqi’s team issued an “inclusive” invite for Sunday’s press meet open to all members of the media.
