Lagatar24 Desk
Kabul, Sept.30: The Taliban violently suppressed a small women’s rights demonstration on Thursday, firing rounds into the air and driving protestors back. Six ladies had gathered outside a high school in eastern Kabul to urge that girls be allowed to return to secondary school after being barred from courses earlier this month by the hardline Islamist group. Before Taliban soldiers seized it from them, the women unfurled a banner that read ‘Don’t break our pens, don’t burn our books, and don’t close our schools’.
Women protestors were pushed back as they attempted to continue the rally, while a foreign journalist was shot with a rifle and prevented from filming. According to AFP journalists, a Taliban fighter fired a quick burst of bullets into the air with his automatic rifle. The activists, who belonged to the “Spontaneous Movement of Afghan Women Activists,” sought shelter inside the school.
The marchers “did not cooperate with security authorities on their protest,” according to Taliban guard Mawlawi Nasratullah, who headed the gathering and identified himself as the head of special forces in Kabul. “They have the right to protest in our country like every other country. But they must inform the security institutes before,” he said.
Following the Taliban’s takeover of power, isolated gatherings with women at the lead were held in towns around the country, including in the western city of Herat, where two people were killed. However, since the government issued an order prohibiting unlicensed demonstrations and threatening “serious legal action” against violators, protests have dwindled.
Girls have been barred from attending secondary school for almost two weeks. The Taliban adhere to a rigid interpretation of sharia law that separates men and women, as well as restricting women’s employment opportunities. They claim that the necessary conditions must be in place before girls may return to school, but many Afghans remain skeptical.
