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KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — Turkey and Saudi Arabia grew to become the newest Muslim-majority international locations to sentence a choice by Taliban authorities to bar ladies from universities, whereas about two dozen ladies staged a protest within the streets of Kabul on Thursday.
In one other signal of home opposition, a number of Afghan cricketers condemned the college ban. Cricket is a massively fashionable sport in Afghanistan, and gamers have tons of of hundreds of followers on social media.
The nation’s Taliban rulers earlier this week ordered ladies nationwide to cease attending personal and public universities efficient instantly and till additional discover.
They’ve but to publicly communicate concerning the ban or react to the worldwide backlash in opposition to it, though a spokesman for the Ministry of Larger Schooling, Ziaullah Hashmi, stated in a tweet Thursday {that a} information convention can be held this week to clarify the transfer.
Regardless of initially promising a extra reasonable rule respecting rights for ladies and minorities, the Taliban have extensively applied their interpretation of Islamic regulation, or Sharia, since they seized energy in August 2021.
They’ve banned ladies from center college and highschool, barred ladies from most fields of employment and ordered them to put on head-to-toe clothes in public. Ladies are additionally banned from parks and gymnasiums. On the similar time, Afghan society, whereas largely conventional, has more and more embraced the schooling of women and girls over the previous 20 years.
The most recent condemnations of the college ban got here from Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
Turkish Overseas Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu stated Thursday that the ban was “neither Islamic nor humane.”
Talking at a joint information convention together with his Yemeni counterpart, Cavusoglu referred to as on the Taliban to reverse their choice.
“What hurt is there in ladies’s schooling? What hurt does it to do Afghanistan?” Cavusoglu stated. “Is there an Islamic rationalization? Quite the opposite, our faith, Islam, shouldn’t be in opposition to schooling, quite the opposite, it encourages schooling and science.”
Saudi Arabia, which till 2019 enforced sweeping restrictions on ladies’s journey, employment and different essential facets of their every day life together with driving, additionally urged the Taliban to vary course.
The Saudi overseas ministry expressed “astonishment and remorse” at Afghan ladies being denied a college schooling. In a press release late Wednesday, the ministry stated the choice was “astonishing in all Islamic international locations.”
Beforehand, Qatar, which has engaged with the Taliban authorities, additionally condemned the choice.
Within the capital of Kabul, about two dozen ladies marched within the streets Thursday, chanting in Dari for freedom and equality. “All or none. Don’t be afraid. We’re collectively,” they chanted.
In video obtained by The Related Press, one girl stated Taliban safety forces used violence to disperse the group.
“The women have been crushed and whipped,” she stated. “In addition they introduced army ladies with them, whipping the ladies. We ran away, some ladies have been arrested. I don’t know what’s going to occur.”
A number of Afghan cricketers referred to as for the ban to be lifted.
Participant Rahmanullah Garbaz stated in a tweet that each day of schooling wasted was a day wasted within the nation’s future.
One other cricketer, Rashid Khan, tweeted that ladies are the muse of society. “A society that leaves its youngsters within the fingers of ignorant and illiterate ladies can not count on its members to serve and work laborious,” he wrote.
One other present of help for feminine college college students got here at Nangarhar Medical College. Native media reported that male college students walked out in solidarity and refused to sit down exams till ladies’s college entry was reinstated.
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Related Press author Suzan Fraser contributed from Ankara, Turkey.
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