KABUL: Hundreds of young women were stopped by armed guards on Wednesday from entering Afghan university campuses, a day after the nation\u2019s Taliban rulers banned them from higher education in another assault on human rights.
\nDespite promising a softer rule when they seized power last year, the hard-line Islamists have ratcheted up restrictions on all aspects of women\u2019s lives, ignoring international outrage.
\nA team of AFP journalists saw groups of students gathered outside universities in the capital, Kabul, barred from entering by armed guards and shuttered gates.
\nMany, dressed in hijabs, were also seen standing in groups on roads leading to the campuses.
\n\u201cWe are doomed. We have lost everything,\u201d said one student, who asked not to be identified.
\nMen students also expressed shock at the latest edict.
\n\u201cIt really expresses their illiteracy and low knowledge of Islam and human rights,\u201d said one, also asking not to be named.
\n\u201cIf the situation continues like this the future will be worse. Everyone is scared.\u201d
\nMost private and government universities are closed for a few weeks over winter, although campuses generally remain open to students and staff.
\nThe decision to bar women from universities came late Tuesday in a terse announcement from Neda Mohammad Nadeem, the Minister for Higher Education.
\n\u201cYou all are informed to immediately implement the mentioned order of suspending education of females until further notice,\u201d it said.
\nWashington condemned the decision \u201cin the strongest terms.\u201d
\n\u201cThe Taliban cannot expect to be a legitimate member of the international community until they respect the rights of all in Afghanistan. This decision will come with consequences for the Taliban,\u201d Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
\nUN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, meanwhile, was \u201cdeeply alarmed,\u201d his spokesman said Tuesday.
\n\u201cThe 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\u2019s future,\u201d Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
\nThe 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.
\nMost teenage girls across the country have already been banned from secondary school, severely limiting university intake anyway.
\nAfter 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.
\nThe Taliban adhere to an austere version of Islam, with the movement\u2019s supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and his inner circle of clerics against modern education, especially for girls and women.
\nBut they are at odds with many officials in Kabul \u2014 and among their rank and file \u2014 who had hoped girls would be allowed to continue learning following the takeover.
\n\u201cThe latest decision will increase these differences,\u201d a Taliban commander based in northwest Pakistan told AFP on condition of anonymity.
\nIn a cruel U-turn, the Taliban in March blocked girls from returning to secondary schools on the morning they were supposed to reopen.
\nSeveral Taliban officials maintained the secondary education ban was only temporary, but have wheeled out a litany of excuses for the closure \u2014 from a lack of funds to the time needed to remodel the syllabus along Islamic lines.
\nSince the ban, many teenage girls have been married off early \u2014 often to much older men of their father\u2019s choice.
\nSeveral families interviewed by AFP last month said that, coupled with economic pressure, the school ban meant that securing their daughters\u2019 future through marriage was better than them sitting idle at home.
\nWomen have also been pushed out of many government jobs \u2014 or are being paid a pittance of their former salary to stay at home. They are also barred from traveling without a male relative and must cover up outside of the home, ideally with a burqa.
\nIn November, women were prohibited from going to parks, funfairs, gyms and public baths.
\nThe international community has made the right to education for all women a sticking point in negotiations over aid and recognition of the Taliban regime.
\nAfghanistan\u2019s neighbor, Pakistan, said that engagement with the Taliban was still the best path forward.
\n\u201cI\u2019m disappointed by the decision that was taken today,\u201d Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said Tuesday on a visit to Washington.
\nBut, he added: \u201cI still think the easiest path to our goal \u2014 despite having a lot of setbacks when it comes to women\u2019s education and other things \u2014 is through Kabul and through the interim government.\u201d
\nIn the 20 years between the Taliban\u2019s two reigns, girls were allowed to go to school and women were able to seek employment in all sectors, though the country remained socially conservative.
\nThe authorities have also returned to public floggings and executions of men and women in recent weeks as they implement an extreme interpretation of Islamic sharia law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
KABUL: Hundreds of young women were stopped by armed guards on Wednesday from entering Afghan university campuses, a day after the nation\u2019s 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 hard-line Islamists have ratcheted up restrictions on all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":302596,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-302589","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n