The Taliban\u2019s acting deputy foreign minister called on his senior leadership to open schools for Afghan girls, among the strongest public rebukes of a policy that has contributed to the international isolation of its rulers.<\/p>\n
Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, who previously led a team of negotiators at the Taliban\u2019s political office in Doha before US forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, said in a speech at the weekend that restrictions on girls and women\u2019s education was not in line with Islamic Sharia law.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe request the leaders of the Islamic Emirate to open the doors of education,\u201d he said, according to local broadcaster Tolo, referring to the Taliban\u2019s name for its administration.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the time of the Prophet Muhammad (Peace Be Upon Him), the doors of knowledge were open to both men and women,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday, out of a population of forty million, we are committing injustice against twenty million people,\u201d he added, referring to the female population of Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
The comments were among the strongest public criticism in recent years by a Taliban official of the school closures, which Taliban sources and diplomats have previously told Reuters were put in place by the supreme spiritual leader Haibatullah Akhundzada despite some internal disagreement.<\/p>\n
The Taliban have said they respect women\u2019s rights in accordance with their interpretation of Islamic law and Afghan culture.<\/p>\n
They made a sharp u-turn on promises to open high schools for girls in 2022, and have since said they were working on a plan for the schools to re-open but have not given any timeline. They closed universities to female students at the end of 2022.<\/p>\n
The policies have been widely criticised internationally, including by Islamic scholars, and Western diplomats have said any path towards formal recognition of the Taliban is blocked until there is a change on their policies towards women.<\/p>\n
A Taliban administration spokesman in the southern city of Kandahar where Haibatullah is based did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Stanekzai\u2019s remarks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Taliban\u2019s acting deputy foreign minister called on his senior leadership to open schools for Afghan girls, among the strongest public rebukes of a policy that has contributed to the international isolation of its rulers. Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanekzai, who previously led a team of negotiators at the Taliban\u2019s political office in Doha before US […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4868,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4867","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-international-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4867","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4867"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4867\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4869,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4867\/revisions\/4869"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4867"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4867"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/weeklyyoung.pk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4867"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}