Protests if Afghan girls’ schools stay shut
– Women’s rights activists pledged yesterday to launch protests across Afghanistan if the Taliban fail to reopen girls’ secondary schools within a week.
Thousands of secondary school girls had flocked to classes last Wednesday after the hardline Islamists reopened their institutions for the first time since seizing power last August. But officials ordered the schools shut again just hours into the day, triggering international outrage.
“We call on the leaders of the Islamic Emirate to open girls’ schools within one week,” activist Halima Nasari read from a statement issued by four women’s rights groups at a press conference in Kabul. “If the girls’ schools remain closed ... we will open them ourselves and stage demonstrations throughout the country until our demands are met.”
The Taliban should be building more schools for girls in rural areas rather than shutting existing facilities, said the statement.
“The people can no longer tolerate such oppression. We do not accept any excuse from the authorities,” it said.
On Saturday, about two dozen schoolgirls and women staged a protest in Kabul demanding the reopening of the schools.
“Women, teachers and girls should come out and protest,” said student Zarghuna Ibrahimi, 16, who attended the press conference. “The international community should support us.”
The education ministry has so far not given a clear reason for its policy reversal, but senior Taliban leader Suhail Shaheel told AFP that some “practical issues” were still to be resolved before reopening the schools.
Since storming back to power the Taliban have rolled back two decades of gains made by Afghanistan’s women, who have been squeezed out of government jobs, barred from travelling alone and ordered to dress according to a strict interpretation of the Koran.
The Taliban had promised a softer version of the harsh Islamist rule that characterised their stint in power from 1996 to 2001. But many restrictions have still crept back, often implemented at the whim of regional officials.
Some Afghan women initially resisted the curbs, holding small protests where they demanded the right to education and work.
The Taliban soon rounded up the ringleaders, holding them incommunicado while denying they had been detained. Since their release, most have gone silent.
Yesterday, the ministry for promotion of virtue and prevention of vice ordered that men and women should not visit parks in Kabul on the same days.
Women are now permitted to visit parks on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday, while the remaining days were reserved for men, a ministry notification said.
“It is not the Islamic Emirate’s order but our God’s order that men and women who are strangers to each other should not gather at one place,” Mohammad Yahya Aref, an official at the ministry, said. –