KABUL: The Taliban shutdown of girls’ education shows the hard-line Islamists’ are not listening to the Afghan people and poses a major hurdle to international recognition of the new regime, a top European Union official said Thursday.
In March, Taliban authorities ordered all secondary girls’ schools to shut, just hours after reopening them for the first time since seizing power in August last year.
The decision, which came from the country’s supreme leader and the movement’s chief Hibatullah Akhundzada, has triggered widespread outrage in the international community.
Western nations have made aid pledges to tackle Afghanistan’s spiralling humanitarian crisis conditional on the Taliban’s respect for human rights, particularly the rights of women to work and education.
But the EU’s special envoy to Afghanistan Tomas Niklasson told AFP the Taliban veto on girls’ schools “has put some doubts in our heads regarding how reliable their promises are, how reliable they may be as a partner.”
“It seems to be a government that isn’t really listening to its people,” he said, adding that what women really wanted is the right to work, education, access to health facilities and “not instructions on how to dress.”
The Taliban had repeatedly assured that they would reopen secondary schools for girls, but on March 23 they ordered them shut after tens of thousands of teenage girls flocked to attend classes.
They have yet to offer any new timetable as to when the institutions will be opened again.
“If the schools open relatively soon across the country at all levels for boys and girls, this could be a positive, positive step forward,” Niklasson said as he wrapped up a five-day visit to Kabul.
He said removing the ban on girls’ education would be a “dramatic shift” which — if accompanied by guarantees for other civil liberties, minority protections and women’s rights — could help make the Taliban’s case for international recognition.
However, he warned the EU currently believes Afghanistan is in the grip of “a more backward going trend.”
The Taliban have rolled back several freedoms gained by women during the two decades of US-led military intervention.
They have effectively banned women from many government jobs and from traveling alone unless accompanied by an adult male relative.
Last week Akhundzada also issued a decree ordering women to cover up fully in public, including their faces.
He also commanded authorities to fire female government employees who do not follow the new dress code, and to suspend male workers if their wives and daughters fail to comply.
Some Afghan women initially pushed back against the creeping new curbs, holding small protests.
But the Taliban soon rounded up the ringleaders, holding them incommunicado while denying that they had been detained.
On Wednesday, Taliban fighters dispersed a small women’s protest against the burqa dress code and even obstructed journalists from covering it.
EU says Taliban ‘not listening’ to Afghans with girls’ school ban
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EU says Taliban ‘not listening’ to Afghans with girls’ school ban
Palestine Action hunger strikers launch legal action against UK govt
- They accuse authorities of abandoning prison safety policies
- Several of the imprisoned activists have been hospitalized
LONDON: Hunger strikers from Palestine Action in the UK have launched legal action against the government, accusing it of abandoning the policy framework for prison safety, The Independent reported.
A pre-action letter was sent to Justice Secretary David Lammy by a legal firm representing the activists.
It came as several imprisoned members of the banned organization — including one who has refused food for 51 days — were hospitalized due to their deteriorating health while on hunger strike.
They say they have sent several letters to Lammy, who is also deputy prime minister, but have received no response.
He was urged in the latest letter to respond within 24 hours as the issue is a “matter of urgency.”
The letter added: “Our clients’ health continues to deteriorate, such that the risk of their dying increases every day.”
An “urgent meeting” is needed “with the proposed defendant to discuss the deterioration of our clients’ health and to discuss attempts to resolve the situation,” it said.
Seven of the Palestine Action prisoners have been admitted to hospital since the hunger strike was launched on Nov. 2, including 30-year-old Amu Gib and Kamran Ahmed, 28.
They are being held in prisons across the country. Two members of the group have been forced to end their hunger strike due to health conditions: Jon Cink, 25, ended on day 41, while 22-year-old Umer Khalid finished on day 13.
Gib, now on day 51, was hospitalized last week and reportedly needs a wheelchair due to health concerns.
Dr. James Smith, an emergency physician, warned journalists last Thursday that some of the imprisoned activists “are dying” and need specialized medical care.
In a letter signed by more than 800 doctors, Smith said the hunger strikers were at “very high risk of serious complications, including organ failure, irreversible neurological damage, cardiac arrhythmias and death.”
The strikers are demanding that Palestine Action, which is classified as a terrorist organization, be de-proscribed.
They are also urging the government to shut down defense companies with ties to Israel, among other demands.
In response to the latest letter, a Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “We strongly refute these claims. We want these prisoners to accept support and get better, and we will not create perverse incentives that would encourage more people to put themselves at risk through hunger strikes.”
