The minister of better schooling withinside the Taliban authorities on Thursday defended his choice to prohibit girls from universities — a decree that had prompted a worldwide backlash.
Discussing the problem for the primary time in public, Nida Mohammad Nadim stated the ban issued in advance this week became important to save you the combination of genders in universities and due to the fact he believes a few topics being taught violated the standards of Islam. He stated the ban became in vicinity till similarly notice.
In an interview with Afghan television, Nadim driven returned in opposition to the extensive global condemnation, consisting of from Muslim-majority international locations together with Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Qatar. Nadim stated that foreigners must prevent interfering in Afghanistan’s inner affairs.
Earlier on Thursday, the overseas ministers of the G7 institution of states advised the Taliban to rescind the ban, caution that “gender persecution can also additionally quantity to a criminal offense in opposition to humanity.” The ministers warned after a digital assembly that “Taliban rules designed to erase girls from public lifestyles may have outcomes for the way our international locations interact with the Taliban.” The G7 institution consists of Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, america and the European Union.
Nadim stated universities might be closed to girls for the time being, however that the ban may be reviewed at a later time.
A former provincial governor, police leader and navy commander, Nadim became appointed minister in October with the aid of using the very best Taliban chief and formerly pledged to stamp out secular schooling. Nadim opposes girl schooling, announcing it’s far in opposition to Islamic and Afghan values.
In Afghanistan, there was a few home competition to the college ban, consisting of statements of condemnation with the aid of using numerous Afghan cricketers. Cricket is a extremely famous recreation in Afghanistan, and gamers have loads of hundreds of fans on social media.
Despite first of all promising a extra slight rule respecting rights for girls and minorities, the Taliban have broadly applied their interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia, due to the fact they seized strength in August 2021.
They have banned ladies from center faculty and excessive faculty, barred girls from maximum fields of employment and ordered them to put on head-to-toe apparel in public. Women also are banned from parks and gyms. At the equal time, Afghan society, whilst in large part traditional, has an increasing number of embraced the schooling of ladies and girls during the last decades.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu stated Thursday that the ban became “neither Islamic nor humane.”
Speaking at a joint information convention together along with his Yemeni counterpart, Cavusoglu known as at the Taliban to opposite their choice.
“What damage is there in girls’s schooling? What damage does it do to Afghanistan?” Cavusoglu stated. “Is there an Islamic explanation? On the contrary, our religion, Islam, isn’t in opposition to schooling, at the contrary, it encourages schooling and science.”
Saudi Arabia, which till 2019 enforced sweeping regulations on girls’s travel, employment and different important elements in their every day lives, consisting of driving, additionally advised the Taliban to alternate course.
The Saudi overseas ministry expressed “astonishment and regret” at Afghan girls being denied a college schooling. In a announcement overdue Wednesday, the ministry stated the choice became “awesome in all Islamic international locations.”
Previously, Qatar, which has engaged with the Taliban authorities, additionally condemned the choice.
In the capital of Kabul, approximately dozen girls marched withinside the streets Thursday, chanting in Dari for freedom and equality. “All or none. Don’t be afraid. We are together,” they chanted.
In video received with the aid of using The Associated Press, one lady stated Taliban safety forces used violence to disperse the institution.
“The ladies had been crushed and whipped,” she stated. “They additionally introduced navy girls with them, whipping the ladies. We ran away, a few ladies had been arrested. I do not know what’s going to happen.”
Several Afghan cricketers known as for the ban to be lifted.
Player Rahmanullah Garbaz stated in a tweet that each day of schooling wasted became an afternoon wasted withinside the country’s future.
Another cricketer, Rashid Khan, tweeted that girls are the inspiration of society. “A society that leaves its kids withinside the arms of ignorant and illiterate girls can not assume its individuals to serve and paintings hard,” he wrote.
Another display of guide for girl college college students got here at Nangarhar Medical University. Local media pronounced that male college students walked out in cohesion and refused to take a seat down for assessments till girls’s college get right of entry to became reinstated.
Girls had been banned from faculty past the 6th grade because the Taliban’s return.
In northeastern Takhar province, teenage ladies stated the Taliban on Thursday compelled them out of a non-public schooling education middle and instructed them they now not had the proper to study. One student, 15-year-vintage Zuhal, stated the ladies had been crushed.
Another, 19-year-vintage Maryam, stated whilst crying: “This education middle became our wish. What can those ladies do? They had been complete of wish and coming right here to learn. It is clearly a pity. (The Taliban) have taken all our hopes. They closed schools, universities, and the education middle, which became very small.”