Funviralpark Kabul, Afghanistan (AP) — On Saturday, the Taliban government suspended all foreign and domestic non-governmental groups in Afghanistan from hiring women after some female employees were not wearing their Islamic headscarves correctly. ordered to stop.The ban was the latest restrictive move by Afghanistan’s new rulers against women’s rights and freedom.
The order, in a letter from Economy Minister Khali Din Mohammed Hanif, said that NGOs found not to comply with the order would have their licenses to operate in Afghanistan revoked. The contents of the letter were confirmed to his Associated Press by his Abdul Rahman Habib, a spokesman for the ministry.
The ministry said it had received “serious complaints” that female staff working for NGOs were not wearing the “correct” headscarves or hijabs. It was not immediately clear whether the order would apply to all women or just Afghan women working for NGOs.
Details about the latest Taliban ban were not immediately available amid concerns it could be a stepping stone to more restrictive measures against Afghan women.
Also on Saturday, witnesses said Taliban security forces used water cannons to disperse women protesting against a ban on women’s college education in the western city of Herat.Taliban rulers on Tuesday banned female students from attending college Effective immediately.
Afghan women have since demonstrated in major cities against the ban, a rare sign of domestic protests since the Taliban took power last year. It provoked anger and opposition both internally and externally.
Witnesses in Herat said security forces fired water cannons on Saturday as some 20 women headed to the governor’s house to protest the ban, chanting “education is our right”. pushed back by
A video shared with the AP shows a woman hiding in a side street and screaming to escape water cannons.
Mariam, one of the organizers of the protest, said between 100 and 150 women had joined the protest, moving in small groups from different parts of the city towards the central meeting point. She did not give her last name for fear of retaliation.
“There was security on every street, every square, armored vehicles, armed men,” she said. “When we started protesting in Taliki Park, the Taliban took tree branches and beat us. Around 11am they brought out a water cannon.”
A spokesman for provincial governor Hamidullah Mutawakil claimed there were only four to five protesters.
“They had no intentions. They just came here to make a movie,” he said, without mentioning violence against women or the use of water cannons.
There has been widespread international condemnation of the university ban, including in Muslim-majority countries such as Saudi Arabia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar, as well as criticism from the United States and the G-7 group of major industrial nations. It also contains warnings. This policy will affect the Taliban.
The Taliban government’s higher education minister, Nida Mohammad Nadim, spoke about the ban for the first time in an interview with Afghan state television on Thursday.
He said the ban was necessary to prevent gender mixing at universities Also because he believes that some of the subjects violate the principles of Islam. He also added that the ban will be in effect until further notice.
Despite initially promising more moderate rules that respect the rights of women and minorities, the Taliban have widely implemented an interpretation of Islamic law, or Shariah, since taking power in August 2021. rice field.
They have banned girls from attending middle school, high school and now college, and have banned women from working in most employment sectors. Women were also ordered to wear head-to-toe clothing in public and were barred from parks and gyms.
While largely traditional, Afghan society has increasingly embraced the education of girls and women over the past two decades of US-backed government.
In the southwestern Pakistani city of Quetta, dozens of Afghan refugee students Saturday protested a ban on women’s higher education in their homeland and demanded the immediate reopening of campuses for women.
One of them, Bibi Hasina, read a poem describing the plight of girls in Afghanistan seeking an education. She is frustrated about graduating outside the country at a time when hundreds of thousands of Afghan sisters are deprived of their education.
