Afghans of North Texas chant ‘We want peace’ as they push to keep attention on their homeland

Aria Satary gave a traditional greeting of peace to the crowd of about 100 Afghan immigrants and Afghan Americans who rallied on Tuesday for human rights in their Taliban-controlled homeland of Afghanistan.

Then, she hurled her chants: “We want women’s rights. We want children’s rights.”

She is only 14 years old and the daughter of a former U.S. military interpreter who resettled his family in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in 2017.

Aria was one of many speakers at the rally for a fight that may look futile to many. The U.S. pulled out of its 20-year war in that country in a chaotic exit a week ago in which desperate Afghans sought refuge on the last cargo planes out.

But Tuesday, a group of North Texas Afghans stubbornly rallied in front of the office of Republican Sen. John Cornyn, hoping to cast a spotlight on their homeland of 39 million, especially the Panjshir province in northeastern Afghanistan that was the last holdout to the Taliban.

Aria’s roots are in that region, she said, as her father stood by her side. Many in the crowd, including her father, Ghulam Satary, focused their anger toward the Taliban and the role of Pakistan in its rise.

“We want to save Afghanistan,” she said. “We want every child to go to school and not fear bombing.”

The Taliban will crush women’s dreams, Aria told a reporter. “They think women can’t do things. But women can. They want us to be housewives and do chores. We don’t want that. We want our own lives,” she said, as her hand clenched into a fist to make her point.

Eventually, in Texas, Aria said she wants to become a business entrepreneur. Her father said he is proud of his sneaker-clad daughter, whom he called a “freedom fighter.”

Over the weekend, he collapsed in tears when he read the news about his homeland, he said. Getting humanitarian aid, such as food, into the country will become impossible, Satary said.

Around him outside the towers of an office complex, many carried the red, green and black flag of the old Afghanistan. Others kept a red, white and blue U.S. flag on a pole fluttering in the breeze.

Posters supported the National Resistance Front, led by Ahmad Massoud, the son of famed anti-Taliban fighter Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was killed 20 years ago. Others wore T-shirts with Massoud’s image.

Basir Noory, an Afghan-born U.S. citizen, led the crowd in chant after chant of “We want peace” and “We want children’s rights.”

Like a few other men in the crowd, Noory wore a distinctive flat brown wool hat.

Noory disputed some reports, sourced to the Taliban, that Panjshir province had finally fallen under Taliban control. Noory said the fighting continues against the Taliban. He asked that Cornyn raise his voice in support of the National Resistance Front.

A spokesman for Cornyn had no comment on the protest, but did send along an opinion essay by the senator criticizing President Joe Biden, a Democrat, for botching the military withdrawal from that country.