A senior official inside the Taliban authorities has defended his resolution to ban girls in Afghanistan from attending universities, claiming they routinely violated gown codes and had been learning topics that ran opposite to Islam.
Nida Mohammad Nadim, the Taliban-led authorities’s minister of larger schooling, mentioned the ban was essential to cease genders from mixing within the universities. He additionally mentioned girls had been violating social and non secular rules inside Islam as they had been learning “agriculture and engineering.”
“We informed women to have correct hijab however they didn’t they usually wore clothes like they will a marriage ceremony,” he mentioned. “Women had been learning agriculture and engineering, however this did not match Afghan tradition. Women ought to be taught, however not in areas that go towards Islam and Afghan honor.”
The ban included all girls nationwide to cease attending personal and public universities. It was issued efficient instantly and till additional discover.
TALIBAN BANS WOMEN FROM UNIVERSITY EDUCATION AFTER VOWING ACCESS TO ‘ALL’ AFGHANS: ‘THEY WERE LYING’
It was shortly met with demonstrations and protests, in addition to backlash from some nationwide sports activities icons, regional international locations and the U.S. authorities.
Fellow Center East international locations of Saudi Arabia and Qatar urged the Taliban-controlled governing physique to reverse the ban.
In a press release on Wednesday, the Saudi International Ministry expressed its “shock” and “remorse” on the ban.
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken additionally criticized the choice, saying the Taliban was not making strides to realize much-needed worldwide relations ought to they “proceed on this course.”
“What they’ve performed is to attempt to sentence Afghan girls and women to a darkish future with out alternative,” he informed a bunch of reporters in Washington Thursday. “And the underside line is that no nation goes to have the ability to succeed, a lot much less thrive, if it denies half its inhabitants the chance to contribute. And to be clear, and we’re engaged with different international locations on this proper now. There may be going to be a price.”
SAUDI ARABIA, QATAR URGE TALIBAN TO REVERSE BAN ON GIRLS’ EDUCATION IN AFGHANISTAN
The ban comes months after the Taliban assured Fox Information that “all residents” had the appropriate to be educated below their rule.
“They had been mendacity,” Fox Information international correspondent Trey Yingst mentioned Thursday throughout a section of “America’s Newsroom.”
BIDEN OFFICIALS BRACING FOR ‘EMOTIONALLY DIFFICULT’ AFGHANISTAN INVESTIGATION: REPORT
The Taliban-led authorities mentioned it might carry the ban after officers repair or resolve the clothes and topic issues.
The federal government made comparable guarantees after it banned women from attending excessive colleges and center colleges. Officers mentioned courses would resume for women as soon as “technical points” round uniforms and transportation had been sorted, however women have but to return to lecture rooms.
The Taliban, which the U.S. Director of Nationwide Intelligence designates a terrorist group, has remained the governing authority of Afghanistan since 2021, following President Joe Biden’s withdrawal of U.S. forces from the nation in August of that yr.
The final U.S. service member in Afghanistan, Military Gen. Christopher Donahue, did so on Aug. 30, 2021. The Taliban took over the nation 13 days later.
The fear group initially promised a extra reasonable rule respecting rights for ladies and minorities, however has largely performed the alternative over its first yr in energy.
Along with the schooling bans, the Taliban-led authorities has barred girls 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.
BIDEN’S BOTCHED AFGHANISTAN WITHDRAWAL: WE NEED A SERIOUS INVESTIGATION ON WHAT HAPPENED AND WHY
Whereas the choice to withdraw from Afghanistan was initiated by the Trump administration, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo mentioned President Biden modified the circumstances by which the U.S. would agree to go away.
“The Trump administration negotiated a conditioned-based withdrawal that may hold our troopers and civilians secure, in addition to our Afghan companions and allies,” Pompeo wrote in an op-ed in Aug. 2022, a yr after the U.S. withdrawal.
“Sadly, the Biden administration ripped up our conditions-based withdrawal plan and determined to go away unconditionally, trusting the Taliban to not make the most of the vacuum. This become a chaotic rush for the exit, to no person’s shock apart from President Biden. His administration stayed the course, compounding its errors with extra baffling errors and weak point,” Pompeo added on the time.
CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP
He added: “Now, after a yr, the Taliban’s brutal rule is yielding predictable outcomes. The nation is going through a debt and starvation disaster. They’ve rolled again instructional alternatives for women and compelled girls to put on veils. All manners of fundamental human rights are being curtailed.”
Taliban officers haven’t supplied particulars on once they would carry their schooling bans.
Fox Information’ Trey Yingst and The Related Press contributed to this report.