New Film
Our Face Tells: Seeing the Genocide of Hazaras in Afghanistan
This short documentary calls for attention to the genocide of the Hazara people and the oppression of Hazara women. Interviews with remarkable Hazara women, including the first female mayor of Afghanistan, provide insight into how Hazara women continue to resist the Taliban and call out for support from the global community.
Recognize Hazara Genocide Now
Message for October 8 Worldwide Protest #StopHazaraGenocide
“I’m Zareen Taj and I’m on my way to Washington DC to join people around the world who are protesting to demand recognition of the ongoing genocide of Hazara in Afghanistan. I am making this video to explain what genocide is and why it applies to the long history of systematic killings of Hazara.
We are calling attention to this now because last week, on September 30th, a suicide bomber attacked hundreds of students taking exams in the Dasht-e-Barchi of Kabul. Over 50 young people were killed, most of them girls. Many more were injured. As we mourn we need more than sympathy — we need the formal recognition that these systematic attacks against Hazara are genocide.”
Event
Documentarian Zareen Taj & Global Studies (UMBC)
Please join Global Studies visiting lecturer, advocate, author, and filmmaker Zareen Taj and the student filmmakers of GLBL 409: Documentary Film as Global Activism for a presentation of student documentaries and their reflections.
Advocate, Author, Speaker, & Filmmaker
About Zareen Taj
Zareen Taj came to the United States in 2000, once her activism placed her under threat by the Taliban during their first reign of power. She continued her advocacy in the United States and entered academia, where she has since been invited to speak at multiple conferences and written numerous public articles about Afghanistan. In 2004, she became the first Afghan woman to visit the five largest Hazara massacre sites during her work to interview survivors and produce her thesis and a video documentary. Her 2008 Master’s thesis was the first academic writing focused on Hazara women’s identities and oppression in Afghanistan.
Her work appears in the short film Oppression of Hazara in Afghanistan (2008), her book Journey to Empowerment: Women After the Taliban, and in the groundbreaking feminist magazine Ms. Magazine.
Zareen is a current PhD student at the Language, Literacy and Culture program and Visiting Lecturer with Global Studies at the University of Maryland Baltimore County.