KABUL (AFP) – Hundreds of young women were stopped by armed guards on Wednesday from entering Afghan university campuses, a day after the nation’s Taliban rulers banned them from higher education in another assault on human rights.
Despite promising a softer rule when they seized power last year, the hardline militants have ratcheted up restrictions on all aspects of women’s lives, ignoring international outrage.
A team of AFP journalists saw groups of students gathered outside universities in the capital, Kabul, barred from entering by armed guards and shuttered gates.
Many, dressed in hijabs, were also seen standing in groups on roads leading to the campuses.
“We are doomed. We have lost everything,” said one student, who asked not to be identified.
Men students also expressed shock at the latest edict.
“It really expresses their illiteracy and low knowledge of Islam and human rights,” said one, also asking not to be named. “If the situation continues like this the future will be worse. Everyone is scared.”
Most private and government universities are closed for a few weeks over winter, although campuses generally remain open to students and staff.
The decision to bar women from universities came late Tuesday in a terse announcement from Neda Muhammad Nadeem, the Minister for Higher Education.
“You all are informed to immediately implement the mentioned order of suspending education of females until further notice,” it said.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was “deeply alarmed”, his spokesman said Tuesday.
“The secretary-general reiterates that the denial of education not only violates the equal rights of women and girls, but will have a devastating impact on the country’s future,” Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
The ban on higher education comes less than three months after thousands of girls and women were allowed to sit for university entrance exams across the country, with many aspiring to choose teaching and medicine as future careers.
Most teenage girls across the country have already been banned from secondary school, severely limiting university intake anyway.
After the Taliban takeover in August last year, universities were forced to implement new rules including gender-segregated classrooms and entrances, while women were only permitted to be taught by professors of the same sex, or old men.
The Taliban adhere to an austere version of religion, with the movement’s supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and his inner circle of clerics against modern education, especially for girls and women.
But they are at odds with many officials in Kabul -- and among their rank and file -- who had hoped girls would be allowed to continue learning following the takeover.