Afghanistan: Protests in Kabul against university ban for women

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Private university in Kabul: Female students are stopped by security forces in front of the entrance

Photo: WAKIL KOHSAR / AFP

What has long been feared has become reality this week: the Taliban are excluding female students from universities.

In the Afghan capital Kabul, women have now demonstrated against the recently imposed ban.

As the TV channel Tolonews reported on Thursday, female students marched through a neighborhood in western Kabul shouting protest slogans.

Videos showing protests by smaller groups also spread on social networks.

According to the recordings, men should also defend themselves against the university ban of their fellow students.

For example, a video shows students leaving the seminar room in protest during an exam.

According to reports, some professors have also resigned.

According to statements by eyewitnesses, individual protesters and journalists were also briefly arrested.

On Tuesday, the Taliban banned women from all universities in Afghanistan with immediate effect.

Since taking power in August 2021, the Islamists have massively restricted women's rights.

Girls and women are largely excluded from public life.

Internationally, the university ban caused fierce criticism.

The USA, Germany and other Western countries as well as the EU have sharply condemned the regulation.

"Taliban measures aimed at eradicating women from public life will have consequences for how our countries deal with the Taliban," said a joint statement released by the Federal Foreign Office in Berlin on Wednesday evening.

The statement is therefore supported by the EU foreign policy representative and the foreign ministers of twelve countries, including all G7 countries.

Turkey is also opposed to the ban and has called on the Taliban to reverse the regulation.

"This ban is neither Islamic nor human," Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Çavuşoğlu told journalists on Thursday.

'We don't think it's right.

God willing, the Taliban will reverse that decision.

What harm does women's education do to humanity?” he asked.

asc/dpa