KABUL — Women’s rights activists pledged Sunday to launch
a wave of protests across Afghanistan if the
Taliban fail to reopen girls’
secondary schools within a week.
اضافة اعلان
Thousands of secondary school girls had flocked to
classes on 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 even after one
week, 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, which comes after several women’s activists were detained in recent
months.
“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 on the
streets 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.
Separate days at parks
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 many government jobs, barred from travelling
alone, and ordered to dress according to a strict interpretation of the Quran.
The Taliban had promised a softer version of the
harsh Islamist rule that characterized their first stint in power from 1996 to
2001.
But many restrictions have still crept back, often
implemented locally 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.
But the Taliban soon rounded up the ringleaders,
holding them incommunicado while denying that they had been detained.
Since their release, most have gone silent.
On Sunday, 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, told AFP.
“This way women will be able to enjoy their time and
freedom. No man will be there to trouble them,” he said, adding that religious
police were already implementing the order.
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