MONITORING (SW) – Saudi Arabia has joined calls for the Taliban to reverse its decision to impose a ban on higher education for women in Afghanistan. It came a day after the group ordered women nationwide to stop attending private and public universities until further notice.
The Kingdom’s foreign ministry expressed surprise and regret at the decision and said it was met with astonishment in all Muslim countries.
It said the decision denied Afghan women their full legal rights and the right to an education which contributes to supporting security, stability, development, and prosperity in Afghanistan.
Taliban security forces in the Afghan capital enforced the higher education ban for women by blocking their access to universities on Wednesday. Women were filmed weeping and consoling each other outside one campus in Kabul, reported the Arab News.
The Taliban leadership announced the latest restriction on the rights of women and girls in a terse statement late on Tuesday.
“You all are informed to immediately implement the mentioned order of suspending education of females until further notice,” said Neda Mohammad Nadeem, the Taliban’s minister for higher education.
The announcement is only the latest in a series of ever-stricter restrictions on the freedoms of Afghan women, which now include mandatory face coverings and a ban on travel without a male escort.
Public frustration with the regime and its oppressive policies appears to be growing, in echoes of the current women-led protest movement in neighboring Iran, according to Afghanistan’s former national security adviser.
“I think with every passing day, the Afghan people’s frustration is growing with the Taliban’s oppression,” Hamdullah Mohib, national security adviser to the deposed Afghan government of Ashraf Ghani, told the Arab News talk show “Frankly Speaking” in October.
“If this situation continues, this oppression of the Afghan people continues, I’m certain that there will be mass mobilization in the country. It’s just a matter of when it will be.”
Governments and religious authorities were quick to denounce Tuesday’s ban. The Organization of Islamic Cooperation said it was “seriously denting the credibility of the government.”
Qatar, which has played a key role in facilitating talks between the West and the Taliban, said everyone deserves the right to education and urged Afghanistan’s rulers to review the decision “in line with the teachings of the Islamic religion.”
Although it rejected the decision, Afghanistan’s neighbor Pakistan said that engagement with the Taliban was still the best path forward.
“I still think the easiest path to our goal, despite having a lot of setbacks when it comes to women’s education and other things, is through Kabul and through the interim government,” Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, the Pakistani foreign minister, said.
The US immediately denounced the ban and warned that the Taliban regime faces further isolation from the rest of the world.
“The Taliban should expect that this decision, which is in contravention to the commitments they have made repeatedly and publicly to their own people, will carry concrete costs for them,” Ned Price, the State Department spokesman, said.
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