In an interview with Afghan tv, Nadim pushed again towards the widespread worldwide condemnation, together with from Muslim-majority international locations equivalent to Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar. Nadim stated that foreigners ought to cease interfering in Afghanistan’s inner affairs.
Earlier on Thursday, the overseas ministers of the G-7 group of states urged the Taliban to rescind the ban, warning that “gender persecution might quantity to against the law towards humanity.” The ministers warned after a digital assembly that “Taliban insurance policies designed to erase ladies from public life could have penalties for the way our international locations interact with the Taliban.” The G-7 group contains Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the UK, america and the European Union.
A former provincial governor, police chief and navy commander, Nadim was appointed minister in October by the supreme Taliban chief and beforehand pledged to stamp out secular education. Nadim opposes feminine schooling, saying it’s towards Islamic and Afghan values.
Different causes he gave for the college ban had been ladies’s failure to look at a gown code and the research of sure topics and programs.
“We informed women to have correct hijab however they didn’t they usually wore attire like they’ll a marriage ceremony,” he stated. “Ladies had been finding out agriculture and engineering, however this didn’t match Afghan tradition. Ladies ought to be taught, however not in areas that go towards Islam and Afghan honor.”
He added that work was underway to repair these points and universities would reopen for ladies as soon as they had been resolved. The Taliban made comparable guarantees about highschool entry for ladies, saying lessons would resume for them as soon as “technical points” round uniforms and transport had been sorted out, however women stay shut out of lecture rooms.
The Taliban tried to repair what he claimed had been issues they inherited from the earlier administration since their takeover final yr. He alleged that folks weren’t following guidelines and that this justified the college ban.
In Afghanistan, there was some home opposition to the college ban, together with from a number of cricketers. Cricket is a massively standard sport within the nation, and gamers have tons of of hundreds of followers on social media.
One other present of assist for feminine college college students got here at Nangarhar Medical College. Native media reported that male college students walked out in solidarity and refused to sit down for exams till ladies’s college entry was reinstated.
Regardless of initially promising a extra average rule respecting rights for ladies and minorities, the Taliban have broadly applied their interpretation of Islamic regulation, or Sharia, since they seized energy in August 2021.
They’ve banned women from center college and highschool, barred ladies from most fields of employment and ordered them to put on head-to-toe clothes in public. Girls are additionally banned from parks and gymnasiums. On the identical time Afghan society, whereas largely conventional, has more and more embraced the schooling of women and girls over the previous twenty years.
Turkish Overseas Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu stated Thursday that the ban was “neither Islamic nor humane.” Talking at a joint information convention together with his Yemeni counterpart, he referred to as on the Taliban to reverse their determination.
“What hurt is there in ladies’s schooling? What hurt does it do to Afghanistan?” Cavusoglu stated. “Is there an Islamic rationalization? Quite the opposite, our faith, Islam, isn’t towards schooling, quite the opposite, it encourages schooling and science.”
Saudi Arabia, which till 2019 enforced sweeping restrictions on ladies’s journey, employment and different essential points of their each day lives, together with driving, additionally urged the Taliban to vary course.
The Saudi overseas ministry expressed “astonishment and remorse” at Afghan ladies being denied a college schooling. In a press release late Wednesday, the ministry stated the choice was “astonishing in all Islamic international locations.”
Beforehand, Qatar, which has engaged with the Taliban authorities, additionally condemned the choice.
Within the capital of Kabul, about two dozen ladies marched within the streets Thursday, chanting in Dari for freedom and equality. “All or none. Don’t be afraid. We’re collectively,” they chanted.
In video obtained by The Related Press, one lady stated Taliban safety forces used violence to disperse the group.
“The women had been overwhelmed and whipped,” she stated. “In addition they introduced navy ladies with them, whipping the ladies. We ran away, some women had been arrested. I don’t know what’s going to occur.”
Ladies have been banned from college past the sixth grade because the Taliban’s return.
In northeastern Takhar province, teenage women stated the Taliban on Thursday pressured them out of a non-public schooling coaching heart and informed them they not had the appropriate to review. One pupil, 15-year-old Zuhal, stated the ladies had been overwhelmed.
One other, 19-year-old Maryam, stated whereas crying: “This coaching heart was our hope. What can these women do? They had been filled with hope and coming right here to be taught. It’s actually a pity. (The Taliban) have taken all our hopes. They closed faculties, universities, and the coaching heart, which was very small.”
Related Press author Suzan Fraser contributed from Ankara, Turkey.