In Afghanistan, a senior Taliban Minister, Deputy Foreign Minister Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, has been forced to flee from the country amid fears of arrest. The minister had advocated for lifting the ban on girls’ education in Afghanistan and has condemned the group’s ban on their education, calling it anti-Islamic.
On January 20, during a graduation ceremony in Khost province, near the Afghan-Pakistan border, Stanikzai spoke about opening schools for girls and said that banning their education was not in line with Shariah law. “There is no excuse for this – not now and not in the future. We are being unjust to 20 million people,” Stanikzai said, referring to the Afghanistani women and girls.
“During the time of the prophet Muhammad, the doors of knowledge were open for both men and women. There were such remarkable women that if I were to elaborate on their contributions, it would take a considerable amount of time,” the Afghanistan Minister added.
These comments of the the Minister fueled internal division, forcing the Taliban’s supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, to order his arrest. Akhundzada also issued a travel ban against him, prohibiting him from entering Afghanistan again.
Following this controversy, Stanikzai went to Dubai, as reported by the news channel Afghanistan International. However, the Taliban leader told the media that he has gone to Dubai for his medical treatment.
Notably, this is not the first time when the leader has raised his voice to support girl education. In 2022, he said that no one has a religious reason that can justify depriving girls of education, calling schools and colleges obligatory for both genders.
In December 2022, the Taliban regime banned university education for females. InAfghanistan, under the Taliban rule, access to universities for female students remains suspended. In a letter, confirmed by Ziaullah Hashimi, the spokesperson of Afghanistan’s Ministry of Education, all the public and private universities were instructed to suspend access to female students immediately, in compliance with the cabinet decision.
“You are all informed to immediately implement the mentioned order of suspending female education until further notice,” said a letter signed by Minister of Higher Education Neda Mohammad Nadeem. The letter was addressed to all government and private universities.
Following the Taliban’s takeover of the country, universities were compelled to implement new rules, such as gender-segregated classrooms and entrances. Women were only permitted to be educated by women professors or old men. Girls in Afghanistan already had very limited access to secondary education and a ban imposed on their university education shattered their dreams of pursuing careers of their choice.
