Afghan Women Dare Taliban Regime, Stage Street Protest Against University Ban | Sahara Reporters https://t.co/9xODKwHeh6 pic.twitter.com/Rg2CTSfNlz
— Sahara Reporters (@SaharaReporters) December 22, 2022
A small group of Afghan women on Thursday staged a defiant protest in Kabul against a Taliban
...Arabic for students...
order banning them from universities.
Some of the protesters were arrested, according to AFP.
The Taliban authorities had ordered a nationwide ban on university education for females. This is in line with the Islamists’ hardline approach to Afghan women's right to education and freedom.
Despite promising a softer rule when they seized power last year, the Taliban have ratcheted up restrictions on all aspects of women's lives, ignoring international outrage, AFP reports. In the latest move to restrict human rights
When they're defined by the state or an NGO they don't mean much...
in Afghanistan, the Taliban's minister for higher education on Tuesday ordered all public and private universities to bar women from attending.
"They expelled women from universities. Oh, the respected people, support, support. Rights for everyone or no one!" chanted the protesters as they rallied in a Kabul neighbourhood, footage obtained by AFP showed.
The women and girls who protested on the streets of Kabul against the decree reportedly chanted —"Either for everyone or for no one. One for all, all for one," Shabnam Nasimi, former Policy Special Advisor to Minister for Afghan Resettlement & Minister for Refugees, tweeted on Thursday.
"Taliban reportedly kicked out women & girls from a library in Kabul today. They have nowhere else to go other than stay imprisoned at home," Nasimi also tweeted.
In one of the videos Nasimi posted on Twitter, she translated some of the things said by the protesters as: "For the crime of learning, they threw us out of university. Oh honourable countrymen, please support us. Countrymen, countrymen, come break your silence."
However,
nothing needs reforming like other people's bad habits...
a protester at the rally told AFP that "some of the girls" had been arrested by women coppers. Two were released, but several remained in jug, she added, speaking on condition of anonymity
... for fear of being murdered...
Around two dozen women dressed in hijabs, some wearing masks, could be seen raising their hands and chanting slogans as they marched through the streets.
Women-led protests have become increasingly rare in Afghanistan since the Taliban took over the country last August, after the detention of core
The women had initially planned to gather in front of Kabul University, the country's biggest and most prestigious educational institution, but changed locations after the authorities deployed a large number of security personnel there.
Tuesday's late-night announcement triggered international outrage, with the United States, the United Nations
...the Oyster Bay money pit...
and several Moslem nations denouncing it.
The ban caused disbelief, coming less than three months after thousands were allowed to sit for university entrance exams.
"Afghan girls are dead people, they are crying blood," said Wahida Wahid Durani, a journalism student at the University of Herat
...a venerable old Persian-speaking city in western Afghanistan, populated mostly by Tadjiks, which is why it's not as blood-soaked as areas controlled by Pashtuns...
, who was not at the protest.
"They are using all their force against us. I'm afraid that soon they will announce that women are not allowed to breathe."
Since seizing power, the Taliban have imposed many restrictions on women. Most teenage girls are barred from secondary school, women have been pushed out of many government jobs, prevented from travelling without a male relative and ordered to cover up outside of the home, ideally with a burqa. They are also not allowed to enter parks or gardens.
| Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty adds: |
| Unexpectedly. |
...mindless ferocity in a turban...announced the decision to forbid women from universities late on December 20 in a letter from the Islamist group's education ministry to higher education institutions, drawing immediate condemnation from the international community and the United Nations
...an organization which on balance has done more bad than good, with the good not done well and the bad done thoroughly...
A group of some 50 women dressed in hijabs, some wearing masks, gathered in the capital, Kabul, on December 22 for a peaceful protest march against the move, chanting slogans against the ban, but were attacked and dispersed by Taliban security forces, participants and witnesses told RFE/RL.
The participants intended to gather outside Kabul University, Afghanistan's largest and most prestigious higher education institution, but switched to a different location after a large number of security forces members were deployed there.
One of the women who attended the march, Basira, told RFE/RL that security forces beat some of the participants and took them away, while others managed to escape. A number of journalists covering the protest have been reportedly detained, too.
"Unfortunately, the Taliban turned our protest into violence once again," she told RFE/RL.
She said she did not know the total number of women who were arrested, but said one woman she knows, Zahra Mandaj, was arrested with four others. Basira said she and others avoided arrest by running into houses whose occupants had opened their doors.
Another participant, Shahla Arefi, told RFE/RL that plainclothes female members of the security forces had infiltrated the march and immobilized some protesters who attempted to run when armed Taliban men appeared.
Taliban authorities have not commented on the incident, but the Taliban-led government's minister of higher education defended the decision to ban women from universities.
Nida Mohammad Nadim said in an interview with Afghan television that the ban was necessary to prevent the mixing of genders at universities and because he believes some subjects being taught violated the principles of Islam. He also said female students had ignored Islamic instructions, including on what to wear, and had failed to be accompanied by a male relative when traveling.
"They were dressing like they were going to a wedding. Those girls who were coming to universities from home were also not following instructions on hijab," he said.
The ban is in place until further notice, he added.
Nadim also pushed back against international condemnation of the ban and said foreigners should stop interfering in Afghanistan's internal affairs.
Inside Afghanistan, where cricket is a hugely popular sport, several cricketers have also condemned the move, while some male students at the medical school of Nangarhar University, in eastern Afghanistan, refused to take exams on December 21 in solidarity with their banned female colleagues.