The Taliban government has opened an internal debate to discuss the harsh criticism of its latest ban on university education for women in Afghanistan, which has received almost unanimous condemnation from the international community, including much of the Islamic world.
Taliban Interior Ministry sources told Tolo News that the current acting Interior Minister, Sirajudin Haqqani, as well as the acting Defense Minister, Mohamad Yaqub Mujahid, have privately discussed the possibility of even reversing the decision, announced this week.
Both will travel in the near future to the province of Kandahar, home of the supreme leader of the fundamentalist movement, Hibatullah Ajunzadah, «to discuss this issue in the company of the country’s religious leaders», according to these sources.
In recent hours, countries such as Turkey and Saudi Arabia have condemned the Taliban’s decision, which «is neither Islamic nor humane», in the words of the Turkish Foreign Minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu.
The Saudi Ministry, for its part, expressed its «astonishment and regret» at the denial of university education to Afghan women, a decision which «has surprised all Islamic countries», including some as close to the Taliban as Qatar.
In response, the Taliban’s Minister of Higher Education, Mullah Neda Mohamed Nadim, has called on the international community not to interfere in Afghanistan’s «internal affairs» following the veto of women in the country’s universities.
«We appeal to them not to interfere in our internal affairs. On the one hand, they ask to guarantee the rights of our sisters, while on the other hand they impose restrictions on Muslims in the country,» Nadim alleged in statements to RTA channel picked up by Tolo TV channel.
Nadim justified the decision of the authorities installed by the Taliban on the grounds that women arrive from the provinces to the universities without male companions, as well as that there is a «lack of observance» in women’s dress, in relation to the obligation to wear the veil.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
