The Last Ambassador

When the Taliban takes power in 2021, Afghanistan’s Ambassador to Austria, Manizha Bakhtari, finds herself representing a country whose government has fled and a new regime that she refuses to recognise.

Despite financial and logistical isolation, Bakhtari defies the Taliban to continue her fight for the rights of women in Afghanistan, setting up a programme to enable secret education to schoolgirls and organising political resistance.

Under increasingly difficult conditions, she becomes one of the most important international spokespersons for the women of Afghanistan, staying true to her motto ‘peace is not the absence of war, but the presence of justice’.

Followed by a Q&A with Manizha Bakhtari, Ambassador of Afghanistan to Austria and Horia Mosadiq, a human rights defender and journalist from Afghanistan. Moderated by Marika Theros, Director of Civic Engagement Project at LSE. 

Presented in partnership with Mosaic Global Foundation.

Mosaic Global Foundation is a UK-based charity formed in 2022 in response to the Taliban’s return to power. It works to build peace and cooperation in Central Asia by empowering diverse communities through education, advocacy, and intercultural dialogue. The foundation supports refugee integration, champions human rights and women’s rights, and promotes inclusive systems rooted in diversity and equality. Mosaic seeks to spark lasting change by providing resources and platforms that uplift voices suppressed since 2021 and foster shared prosperity and peace.

End Gender Apartheid Campaign

In March 2023, a group of feminists, human rights defenders, and jurists from Afghanistan and Iran, together with international allies, launched the grassroots End Gender Apartheid Campaign. The End Gender Apartheid Campaign is committed to dismantling and preventing gender apartheid regimes through the codification of gender apartheid as a crime under international and domestic law.