The suicide attack at a Kabul educational center on Friday night: When the new Taliban will take over Afghanistan, and when will it stop?
Many Afghans are concerned about whether the new Taliban government will be able to protect them from rising violence by extremists following the suicide attack at an educational center on Friday.
The blast wounded at least 27 people, Taliban officials said, and was the latest in a string of attacks in recent months on schools and education centers. Medical staff in nearby hospitals reported that the final casualty figures could be much higher.
The education center targeted on Friday was in the Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood of the capital, Kabul, an area dominated by Hazaras, a group that under the previous Western-backed government suffered frequent attacks from both the Taliban insurgency and the Islamic State affiliate in Afghanistan, known as Islamic State Khorasan, or ISIS-K.
KABUL, Afghanistan. The family packed up and fled when the Taliban took over Afghanistan again, because they wanted a puritanical form of Islam.
The new government was quick with assurances that this time would be different, that the Taliban of the 2020s was not the Taliban of the 1990s, and that there would be no brutal campaign of repression against the women of Afghanistan.
Maybe they were telling the truth, Nilaab thought. She hoped that was the case. She had returned to her homeland as a teenager after a decade in exile, and she was not eager to repeat the experience.
An Afghan friend and teacher of a suicide bomber in Kabul: “How the Taliban attacked a predominantly Shia neighborhood in Rome”, edited by Pierre Kattar
Pierre Kattar, the visuals editor for the story, went to a demonstration in Rome by Afghans after the tragic event.
A week after a suicide bomber killed 53 students in Kabul’s predominantly Hazara ethnic neighborhood, an Afghan friend sent me a poster via WhatsApp promoting a protest against attacks on Hazaras — largely Shia Muslims who have historically been persecuted by Sunni militant groups.
The demonstration was intense and emotional. Young women played dead after a white smoke flare was set off. They were re-enacting the suicide bombing. A mother clutched her child and sobbed into his hair. Everywhere I looked, I saw tears. It was very sad.
I noticed two men holding a large poster with pictures of the young women who were killed in the suicide bombing, and I recognized two of the faces right away: Marzia and her best friend and cousin, Hajar.
I was looking at photos sent to us by Marzia’s family. I showed the story to the men, who were holding the poster. The man in the sweater paused while saying he was their teacher.
The Taliban wanted to know where Hussaini was. The teacher was warned quickly by the principal. Hussaini ignored the text because he was in the middle of a lesson. Then, the principal called him and urged him to leave as soon as possible.
There were cameras everywhere in the school for security reasons and the principal was asked to show them the footage from inside classrooms. The principal did what was required.
Hussaini and the Taliban: On the Day of Teachers Day in the Hazara Province, Afghanistan, the Taliban Men in a White Dress
That’s when the Taliban men saw one of Hussaini’s lectures. He had degrees in economics and business management while he was a teacher. The Taliban’s banning of women from obtaining an education and being able to work affected the economy in a negative way, he said in the footage.
He stopped teaching, went off to his class and ran through a back door. He went home and left Kabul the next day. He took refuge in Afghanistan’s Daykundi Province, which is far from the capital and has a majority of ethnic Hazaras.
The last time he saw Marzia and Hajar was the day he abruptly left school. The two women wanted to keep learning so they came in to buy books to study at home, because the Taliban wouldn’t let them attend school anymore.
He remembered something the girls said to him at a local event known as Teachers Day. The date wasOct. 5, 2020. Marzia and Hajar told him: “We will make your face white.”
It was a saying I’d not heard before. Hussaini explained that it’s a phrase used in Afghanistan. It means they were going to make him proud with all of their future accomplishments.
The Education for Females in Afghanistan After the Taliban’s Siege: A Case Study of a Girls’ First Year at Nangarhar University
The education for females has been stopped by the Taliban. After the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021, they banned most women and girls from attending high school.
The Taliban has been cracking down on the rights of Afghan women since it took control of the country in August 2021.
The Taliban were ousted in 2001 by a U.S.-led coalition for harboring al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and returned to power after America’s chaotic departure last year.
The decision was announced after a government meeting. The Ministry of Higher Education shared a letter with private and public universities to make them aware that the ban is in place.
The international community was not happy with the Taliban’s move. It didn’t go down well with Afghans when the Taliban took power a year and a half ago.
“I can’t fulfill my dreams, my hopes. Everything is disappearing before my eyes and I can’t do anything about it,” said a third-year journalism and communication student at Nangarhar University. She didn’t want to be identified for fear of reprisals.
Is it a crime to be a girl? If that’s the case, I wish I wasn’t a girl,” she added. My father had dreams that his daughter would become a journalist. That is now destroyed. So, you tell me, how will a person feel in this situation?”
“God willing, I will continue my studies in any way. I’m starting online studies. And, if it doesn’t work, I will have to leave the country and go to another country,” she said.
Without active participation of women and the education, it’s not hard to imagine how a country could develop and deal with the challenges.
The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations apologizes for the Taliban’s disagreement with the Afghans and their role in the education system
Robert Wood, the deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the Taliban cannot expect to be a legitimate member of the international community until they respect the rights of all Afghans.
Afghanistan’s U.N. seat is still held by the previous government led by former President Ashraf Ghani, despite the Taliban’s request to represent the country at the United Nations, which was recently deferred again.
The announcement at the UN marks a new low in violations of most fundamental and universal human rights, according to the Afghanistan’s charge d’affairs.
A spokesman for the ministry of higher education, Ziaullah Hashmi confirmed the news to NPR and tweeted out the announcement himself with the words “important news.”
“What news could be worse?” asked Zahra in a voice message to NPR, left after she was asked how she felt. She was afraid she would be identified by Taliban officials and wanted her family name not to be used. “I’ve been shaking with anger. I can’t even cry.”
While they had repeatedly promised the international community that the ban was temporary, in March the group abruptly reneged on a promise to allow most girls back to school. The teachers had to kick the students out when they returned to class because of the sudden decision. Students are in tears.
The Taliban gave an array of excuses for the continued ban, from wanting to discuss uniforms to reviewing the girls’ curriculum.
But because of a quirk in the decision-making process, women were still allowed to attend university, albeit with strict conditions: They had to cover their hair and faces at all times, wear long, loose black robes and abide by strict gender segregation. It is not clear how many women were still attending university.
The Gender Role of Education for Women and Girls in the Regime of the Taliban’s “Disgraceful” Decay
He believes that certain Taliban officials try to spread the rumor in hopes of getting international pressure that would lead to a reversal of the ban.
Baheer says that the man in charge thinks that the society should look like an Islamic one. He had a specific view of where women and young girls ought to be, which is within their households. So I guess for all intents and purposes, this is a gender apartheid. This is nothing short of that.”
The international community has refused to recognize the Islamic group’s takeover of Afghanistan because of the Taliban’s move.
Education is a basic human right. “Excluding women and girls from secondary and tertiary education not only denies them this right, it denies Afghan society as a whole the benefit of the contributions that women and girls have to offer. It blocks all of Afghanistan’s future.
An Afghan Woman with Tears and Anange: When Higher Education Begins to Enforce Education Ban Leave Afghan Women with Tearings and Afghan Action
Now, she said, “everything is over for me. The only thing I wanted [was] to be educated and to be a good person in my community and to be an engineer and to serve people. But I cannot do that anymore. Life means nothing for me.”
In one instance, a teacher reported security forces barging into his class, shouting at girls to go home. “Some of students started verbal arguments with them, but they didn’t listen. My students left their classes, crying,” said Waheed Hamidi, an English-language teacher at a tuition center in Kabul.
The move was expected – and dreaded – by observers as the Taliban’s supreme leader Mullah Haibutullah Akhundzada imposes his vision of an Afghanistan which is ultra-conservative, even by the hardline group’s standards.
The former minister of higher education allowed women to go to universities even though they wore face coverings, were not allowed to drink alcohol and were not allowed to vote. But in October, Haqqani was replaced with known hardliner, Nida Mohammad Nadim, who had expressed his opposition to women receiving an education. He is known to be close to Akhundzada.
Another woman who runs three free-of-charge tuition centers for high school-aged girls said she was waiting for Taliban education officials to rule on whether she could keep operating.
Source: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/12/21/1144703393/taliban-begins-to-enforce-education-ban-leaving-afghan-women-with-tears-and-ange
Taliban “I’m not good at sleep”: a woman’s response to Taliban censorship and attacks on U.S. diplomats
“I’m not good at sleep,” said Mohammadi in broken English. “All the girls calling me and I promise I will stay for them,” she said – that she would defend their interests. She broke into tears after that.
She only employed and taught women according to the strict gender segregation rules. Her students wear black robes and black face veils to and from school to ensure they do not offend patrolling Taliban forces. “They wear the hijab,” she said. The follow “all the rules of Taliban.”
The move by the Taliban to establish themselves as a legitimate government was described as shocking and incomprehensible by the U.S. envoy who brokered their return to power. It enraged Afghans on their social media accounts. It seemed to rouse the ire of the former diplomats.
NATO’s last senior civilian representative is in Afghanistan. Jawed Ludin said that he was shocked by how many people were. What did you have in mind? Really?”
The Taliban Are Holding the Entire Population Hostage: The Most Tragic Example of Gender Apartheid in the 21st Century
“It was a terrible scene,” she said. “Most of the girls, including myself, were crying and asking them to let us go in … If you lose all your rights and you can’t do anything about it, how would you feel?”
The group has stripped away the freedom they have fought for over two decades, even though they have claimed that it would protect the rights of girls and women.
“I always thought that we could overcome our sorrow and fear by getting educated,” she said. “However, this (time) is different. It is absolutely unacceptable and unbelievable.
The Taliban are holding the entire population hostage, according to a statement by the former Afghan President.
The current situation of women’s education and work in the country is very serious, sad, and the most obvious and cruel example of gender apartheid in the 21st century. If a girl is literate, she can make a big difference to five future generations and if she is not literate, she will cause the destruction of five future generations.
Another former Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, also expressed “deep regret” over the suspension. The country’s “development, population, and self-sufficiency depend on the education and training of every child, girl, and boy of this land,” he wrote.
The British Prime Minister, the US State Department, and the US Ambassador to Afghanistan all issued similar statements.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/22/asia/taliban-bans-female-students-afghanistan-reaction-intl-hnk/index.html
A girl’s dream of a lifetime: how her friends lived in Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks and what they meant to tell me through the tears of their friends
The UN mission said in a statement it would have a huge impact on the country if half of the population were prevented from contributing to society.
A woman who is being identified by one name for her security missed the blast. When she ran back into her classroom, she was met with the scattered bodies of her friends.
Each brush with death cemented her determination not only to pursue her own ambitions – but the “dreams of all those best friends of mine who died before my eyes,” she said.
She deferred her university plans after the bombing so that she could rebuild the destroyed education center. She wanted to encourage other girls to continue their education.
I am lost. She told CNN that she doesn’t know what to say. I have been thinking of my friends who died in the attack since last night. What was their sacrifice for?”