Sir, – According to Robin Hanan, it’s hard to estimate the contribution that Ireland’s work with Afghan and Syrian human rights activists now living here makes toward the future development of both troubled countries (“Migration and asylum policy”, Letters, July 30th).
Surely any such work has little real value in today’s multipolar world?
In 2021, Geraldine Byrne Nason, then Ireland’s ambassador to the United Nations, told the UN Security Council that Ireland would hold the Taliban to account on human rights issues, particularly relating to their treatment of women and girls. Since then, the Taliban have driven women out of education and even health care. Despite UN travel bans and other measures, senior Taliban can avail of health treatment abroad that no Afghan woman can. In October 2023, the Taliban attended China’s Belt and Road Forum, underlining Beijing’s growing official ties with Afghanistan’s Islamist rulers.
As for Syria, Bashar al-Assad’s hold on the country is as firm as ever. In May 2023, he was warmly welcomed at the Arab League summit in Jeddah. – Yours, etc,
Grá ar an Trá: What is the point of Gráinne Seoige in this incoherent pudding of a series?
Ireland is emerging from winter, but maybe hold off mowing your lawn for now
What’s a phage and why might your body be hosting thousands of them?
Author Torrey Peters: ‘Admitting to any sexual aspect to a trans identity can be politically dangerous. But I refuse to be silenced by bigots’
KARL MARTIN,
Dublin 13.
