More than a dozen male university teachers in Afghanistan have resigned and several male students walked out of their classrooms in support of female students who were forced out of higher education following a Taliban decree.
Male students of Nangarhar university walked away from their exams to protest the Taliban ban preventing girls from attending university. pic.twitter.com/DEiVRlB1BR
— Afghan Peace Watch (@APWORG) December 21, 2022
“I don’t wish to continue working somewhere where there is an organized discrimination against innocent and talented girls of this country by those in power,” Kabul University professor Obaidullah Wardak, who quit in protest on Wednesday, said on Twitter, calling the the ban on women education “unjust and immoral”.
Some women and girls also took to the streets in the capital Kabul on Thursday, chanting “education for all”. Local media reported Taliban soldiers hit the protesters with sticks and whips, while detaining five of them along with two journalists covering the event.
Elsewhere, a social media post by Afghan Peace Watch showed several male students walking out of their classes in protest, while video footage showed girls weeping inside a class when hearing about the ban from a teacher.
The solidarity shown by some Afghan men draws parallels with neighbouring Iran, where months of protests continue to simmer following the death of a 22-year-old woman in police custody in September after she was arrested for allegedly flouting Islamic dress codes by the country’s so-called morality police. The outcry, largely led by girls and women, has garnered support from thousands of men.
The Taliban Minister of Higher Education Neda Mohammad Nadeem – one of its most conservative members – late on Tuesday announced the ban on women attending university.
Members of the militant group wasted no time in enforcing the decree. At one point on Wednesday, a female student reported that Taliban members pointed guns at them to prevent their entry into a Kabul campus.
