Residents of an eastern city reported that dozens of Afghan girls protested after Taliban authorities shut down their secondary schools a few days after classes began. The government secondary schools in the province of Paktia closed last week due to demand from hundreds of girls and tribal leaders. The schools reopened last week after a week-long closure.
According to activists and residents of Gardez, the provincial capital, students returned home after going to class on Saturday.
As a result of the refusal to allow girls into schools, activists protested this morning, said Yasmin, a woman who organized the protest. “We want to tell the world that we want our rights and education is our basic right. We will continue our protest until the government listens to us.”
During their protest, the girls dressed in their school uniforms — a white headscarf and black shalwar kameez — marched from Gardez’s center to the village center.
Tabliban closed the school of Afghan girls
It has been a while since Samkani and Gardez reopened their schools. At the beginning of this year, the Taliban closed down schools across Paktika province. They banned afghan girls from attending school and tried to force them into marriages with their fighters. When girls refused to marry their kidnappers, they beaten and raped as punishment.
After the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan last August, they imposed harsh restrictions on women and girls to conform to their austere interpretation of Islam. Their first reopening of girls’ secondary schools under their ownership took place in March and they shut them down all a month later.
Residents and shopkeepers watched as the girls marched through the city’s center on Saturday, according to social media photos.
“It forbidden for people to take photographs of the protest by the Taliban. Some protesters’ mobile phones actually broken,” Yasmin told AFP.
