Several dozen women wearing black robes gathered in a lecture theatre to hear speakers decry the West and back Taliban education policies at Kabul University on Saturday. Photo / TOLOnews, Twitter
Several dozen women wearing black robes gathered in a lecture theatre to hear speakers decry the West and back Taliban education policies at Kabul University on Saturday. Photo / TOLOnews, Twitter
The Taliban have paraded women in black robes with hoods that cover their faces and appear to block their vision.
Several dozen women wearing black robes, some with hoods over their faces and gloves covering their hands, gathered in a lecture theatre to hear speakers decry the West and back Taliban education policies at Kabul university on Saturday.
"In Western societies we have seen how much they believe in their values and how they defend their values. They can't even tolerate the hijab of Muslim women," one speaker said.
She said women who have recently protested against Taliban rule are "not true representations of Afghan women, and they are not representing us. They pursue their personal interests by falsely claiming to represent Afghan women".
A number of women university and madrassa students on Saturday at a gathering in Kabul announced their support for the Taliban government and for the gender-based separation of classes.#TOLOnewspic.twitter.com/GPOknXOZt9
The outfits worn at the meeting on Saturday drew comment because of the use of a hood covering the eyes, something unheard of in Afghanistan and rarely seen even in the most extreme religious settings elsewhere.
During the Taliban's first regime between 1996 and 2001, women were forced to wear a blue burqa with a mesh panel for eyesight.
Women under the Islamic State's so-called caliphate in Iraq and Syria between 2014 and 2019 wore a black niqab and gloves, with an eye-slit to see through.
Abdul Baqi Haqqani, the Taliban's higher education minister, said on Sunday that he intended to keep universities open to women as long as they wore "hijab", but did not specify whether that meant a headscarf or face covering.
Women inside an auditorium at Kabul University's education centre on Saturday. Photo / AP
He also confirmed the Taliban would enforce a complete ban on mixed-sex teaching.
"We have no problems in ending the mixed-education system ... The people are Muslims and they will accept it," he said on Sunday.
The Taliban have repeatedly promised to preserve female education and women's rights within "the framework of Islamic law" since it came to power last month.
But activists and academics have warned that a blanket end to co-ed classes in secondary and university-level education will amount to a de-facto ban on teaching women and girls because institutions lack the extra classrooms and female staff required to meet the new rules.
Haqqani denied that, saying sufficient female staff could be found and alternative arrangements made in the meantime.
"It all depends on the university's capacity," he said. "We can also use male teachers to teach from behind a curtain, or use technology."
A female activist who asked to remain anonymous because she is still in Kabul told the Telegraph the promises were a "lie" and students had been forced to stay at home because universities do not know how to implement the new rule.
Columns of similarly dressed women chanting pro-Taliban slogans were seen marching in Kabul and Kandahar over the weekend, in an apparent attempt by the Taliban to counter a series of female-led opposition protests.
Taliban showing its women power! If the Sharia allows women to protest publicly, why does it ask women to cover their faces? pic.twitter.com/uWIHlZymxB
Natiq Malikzada, a journalist, said one of the women involved had told him the Taliban summoned students to the hall and "pressured" them to wear black robes.
"They told us that if you do not attend, you will be expelled from university and you will never go to university anywhere," the woman said, according to Malikzada.
Photographs of the meeting drew backlash on social media, with Afghan women posting pictures of themselves in traditional Afghan dress under the hashtag DoNotTouchMyClothes.
"This is Afghan culture. I am wearing a traditional Afghan dress," Bahar Jalai, an academic, posted with a picture of herself in a green dress.
Others said they had not seen outfits where a hood is used to cover the eyes even in the most conservative and religious areas of Afghanistan.
Taliban fighters last week cracked down harshly on mostly female protesters demonstrating against their rule, beating demonstrators and arresting and torturing journalists at the scene.
A Taliban fighter controls a crowd waiting to withdraw money from a bank in Kabul on Sunday. Photo / AP
Taliban fighters violently broke up a protest against limits on women's civil rights and the perceived influence of Pakistan in Afghanistan last week.
Some fighters used the pretext that women should not be on the street and that they should not be filmed or photographed, although others simply said the protest was illegal because it had not been officially sanctioned.
Hamid Karzai, the former president of Afghanistan who chose to remain in Kabul after the government collapsed, said he had used private conversations with the Taliban to urge the group to preserve the gains made by female education over the past 20 years.
"In my view, the general principle of hijab — which Afghan women do anyway — is enough ... there should not be any more stringent measures," he told the BBC.
