Afghan universities reopen but women are still barred…

AMNESTY International, a leading global rights group on Monday, March 6, urged the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council to address the ongoing, “relentless abuses” by Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers, especially severe restrictions on women and freedom of speech.

Universities in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan reopened on March 6 after the winter break, but only men returned to the institutions, with the Taliban’s ban on women in higher education still in place since December 2022.

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“You all are informed to immediately implement the mentioned order of suspending education of females until further notice,” Minister for Higher Education Neda Mohammad Nadeem said in a letter issued to all government and private universities last year.

The decision to ban women from educational institutes drew widespread condemnation from foreign governments and the United Nations, but the Minister insisted that universities would remain off limits to women because female students had ignored Islamic instructions, including what to wear or being accompanied by a male relatives when travelling.

Amnesty International noted that the Taliban have also targeted women’s rights defenders, academics, and activists in recent months and detained them unlawfully.

Veteran journalism lecturer Ismail Mashal, who tore up his degree certificates on live TV to protest the Taliban’s treatment of women in a clip that went viral, was arrested and detained last month after domestic channels showed him carting books around Kabul and offering them to passersby.

Mashal was released on Sunday, March 5, after more than a month in detention, his aide Farid Fazli has disclosed.

“I can confirm that he was released yesterday. He is fine and in good health,” Fazli told AFP.

The London-based watchdog called on the UN Human Rights Council to establish an independent investigative mechanism in Afghanistan as soon as possible and for UN members to act towards ending impunity and ensuring justice for victims of Taliban abuses.

“The human rights situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating rapidly, and the Taliban’s relentless abuses continue every single day,” said Amnesty International’s Secretary General Agnès Callamard.

In Afghanistan nine in 10 women will experience physical, sexual or psychological violence from their partner, according to the UN’s mission in the country.

Divorce, however, is often more taboo than the abuse itself and the culture remains unforgiving to women who part with their husbands.

Lawyers told AFP that several women have reported being dragged back into abusive marriages after Taliban commanders annulled their divorces.

“It is clear that the Taliban are not willing nor able to investigate actions by their members that grossly violate the human rights of Afghanistan’s population,” Callamard added.