প্রকাশ: 27/03/2022
About two dozen,
mainly female, protesters gathered close to the Taliban's Ministry of Education
on Saturday morning, calling on the group to reopen girls' secondary schools.
The Taliban have been widely condemned for issuing a last-minute U-turn earlier this
week, ordering them to close, just hours after teenage pupils began to arrive
for the start of the new academic year.
The protesters chanted, "Education is our right! Open
the doors of girls' schools!" while armed Taliban members looked on.
One female teacher attending told the BBC: "When it
comes to standing up for freedom and the girls who want to go to school, I'm
willing to die.
"We are here for the rights of our daughters to get an
education. Without that right, we might as well be dead already."
The Taliban has previously broken up demonstrations and
detained those involved, but on this occasion the protest was allowed to
continue.
Since the group took power last August, girls' primary
schools in most of the country, along with all boys' schools, have remained
open, but older girls have not been allowed back in the classroom.
The Taliban's Ministry of Education had said girls' secondary
schools would restart on Wednesday, but the decision was overruled by the
group's central leadership, who said they could remain closed until a
"comprehensive" and "Islamic" plan for them had been drawn
up.
The move provoked an outpouring of grief. On social media,
Afghans have been sharing videos of pupils sobbing after returning home early
from what they thought would be their first day back at school.
A presenter on the popular Tolo TV channel struggled to hold
back his tears during a discussion on the issue.
On Friday, a joint statement by officials from 10 countries,
including the US and UK, described the Taliban's decision as "profoundly
disturbing".
The US State Department cancelled meetings with the group
that had been scheduled to take place in Qatar.
The chaotic policy reversal by the Taliban probably reflects
divisions within the group between more hardline and moderate elements.
In some provinces, particularly in northern Afghanistan,
local Taliban officials have allowed teenage girls to continue to study, but
others appear to oppose the idea.
Crying in frustration, one protester at Saturday's
demonstration in Kabul said: "I want our generation to be free and to
flourish, not just to shed tears at home."
প্রধান সম্পাদকঃ সৈয়দ বোরহান কবীর
ক্রিয়েটিভ মিডিয়া লিমিটেডের অঙ্গ প্রতিষ্ঠান
বার্তা এবং বাণিজ্যিক কার্যালয়ঃ ২/৩ , ব্লক - ডি , লালমাটিয়া , ঢাকা -১২০৭
নিবন্ধিত ঠিকানাঃ বাড়ি# ৪৩ (লেভেল-৫) , রোড#১৬ নতুন (পুরাতন ২৭) , ধানমন্ডি , ঢাকা- ১২০৯
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