Demonstration-“lightning” by women in Kabul for the ban on attending universities

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“Some women were arrested by female police officers,” a protester who asked not to be named told AFP.

A small group of women staged a flash demonstration in Kabul today to protest that the Taliban regime had banned them from studying at university, one of the women said, adding that some of them were arrested.

“Rights for all or none,” chanted female protesters in a Kabul district, according to a video obtained by AFP. About twenty Afghan women, dressed in hijabs and some wearing masks, demonstrated in the street with raised fists demanding their right to study.

But “some women were arrested by female police officers, who took them away,” a protester who asked not to be named told AFP.

“Two women were later released, but others remain in custody,” he added.

Women’s protests are increasingly rare in Afghanistan after the arrest of frontline activists earlier this year. Protesters are at risk of arrest, violence and stigmatization.

The demonstration was originally planned to be held in front of the Kabul University campus, the country’s largest, but had to be moved due to the deployment of numerous armed members of the security forces.

“Afghan girls are a dead people … they are crying blood,” said Wahida Wahid Durrani, a journalism student at Herat University (western Afghanistan).

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“They are using all their power against us. I am afraid that soon they will announce that women do not have the right to breathe”, added the student.

On Tuesday night, in a laconic letter, Higher Education Minister Nedah Mohammad Nadeem ordered all public and private universities in the country to indefinitely bar female students from attending classes.

This new affront to the rights of women, who are already excluded from secondary education, has come as a shock to many girls in the country and has been condemned internationally.

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