Afghan educator “beaten and detained”

The Taliban arrested and beat a university professor who voiced outrage on live television against closure of education doors to women.

In December, veteran lecturer Ismail Mashal in an unprecedented move teardown his degree certificates during a live tv debate, protesting the ban of university for women and higher education for girls.

Footage of Mashal destroying his certificates on private channel TOLOnews went viral on social media and many people supported Mashal’s move in support of education.

He did not stop here. Two days ago he appeared in Kabul roads where he was offering passers-by with books. On top of his carting books he wrote, “Iqra”, which means read. However, he has been detained now. Abdul Haq Hammad, Taliban director at the Ministry of Information and Culture confirmed Mashal’s arrest and accused him of echoing “conspiracies against the state.”

Mashal is under investigation, the official said, and many Afghan social media users, including journalists and civil society workers called on the Taliban to immediately release Mashal. Many journalists said that Mashal was simply protesting against the Taliban ban on female schools and universities.

His crime was that he took to the streets in a symbolic gesture and started giving away his personal library to education lovers across the city.

Mashal is arrested without any crime

Mashal is a university teacher and in the past one decided he served his people through education, but today he is behind bars, said a close family member of Mashal to Harici.

Speaking in condition of anonymity, he said that the Taliban dragged him and detained him on Thursday evening despite having committed no crime. He was just giving away books to the students and protesting the education ban, he added.

“Mashal was giving free books to girls and boys,” he said, adding that they are not aware where Mashal is being held. “The Taliban are not giving us information where Mashal has been taken and what his health condition is,” he added.

Reactions over Mashal’s arrest

UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan Richard Bennett said that they are concerned about Thursday’s arrest of peaceful education activist and university lecturer Ismail Mashal by the Taliban. “Targeting and suppressing peaceful civil activities is unacceptable and contrary to Afghanistan’s intention obligations. I call for his immediate and unconditional release,” Bennett added.

Reminding the authorities that education for all without discrimination is not a privilege but a right, he said, adding that “They have an obligation to protect and promote this right, including lifting the ban on girl’s education and opening up space for peaceful civil activities.”

It has been for 501 days that the Taliban banned girls from going to school and over two months that they were prevented from university. The Taliban in their first days of returning to power in August 2021 banned girl’s education above 6th grade.

The international community has repeatedly called on the Taliban to reverse the decision and let the girls and women go to schools and universities.

US State Department Spokesman Ned Price on Friday said that the Taliban cannot expect the respect and support of the international community until they respect the human rights and fundamental freedoms of all Afghans, including women and girls.

Deeply conservative society

Indeed, Afghanistan has been suffering from a deeply conservative and patriarchal society where men rarely protest in support of women. Of course there were a number of men who stood beside their female classmates when they were barred from entering into classes. The male students also avoided writing exams, but this was not enough. Many other Afghan men working in different organizations inside the Taliban administrative or in NGOs did not raise their voice. They still remain silent, but Mashal, who ran a co-educational institute, said he would stand up for women’s rights.

Pashtun women at a school in Kandahar.

Once Mashal said that as a man and a teacher he can’t do anything but was able to tore his certificates as “I felt they were become useless now.” He said he will not slow down his efforts and will stand with his sisters until their rights to education prevail.

The Taliban had promised to let the girls go to schools and women to workplaces, but after returning to power, they failed to honor their promises. In December, Taliban also banned women from working in NGOs including aid organizations. The women had already been barred from going to parks, gyms and public baths as well as traveling long distances without male partner.

Afghan woman and Nobel Peace Prize 2023

On February 1, 2023, the Oslo Peace Research Institute announced that Mahbouba Seraj, an Afghan women’s rights advocate has been shortlisted as a candidate for the 2023 Nobel Peace Prize.

Henrik Urdal, the director of the Institute said that people who work to defend women’s and human rights are at the top of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize list.

Urdal termed Ms. Seraj a “champion of children’s health, education, fighting corruption and empowering survivors of domestic abuse.”

The Nobel Peace Prize is one of the five Nobel most prestigious awards established in 1985 by the will of Swedish industrialist, inventor and armaments manufacturer Alfred Nobel, along with prizes in Chemistry, Physics, Physiology, Medicine and Literature.

Pakistani envoy mending anti-education remarks

After being bombarded from the Pashtun community in Afghanistan and Pakistan for relating restrictions by the Taliban on women with the Pashtun culture, Pakistan’s envoy to the United Nations Munir Akram tried to mend his statement and issue a clarification in this regard.

On Wednesday at the UN Headquarters in New York Akram said that “the restrictions that have been put by the Afghan interim government flow not so much from a religious perspective as from a peculiar cultural perspective of the Pashtun culture, which requires women to be kept at home.”

“And this is a peculiar, distinctive cultural reality of Afghanistan which has not changed for hundreds of years, Akram said.

However, now he is reversing his comment and explained that his comments were referring to a “peculiar perspective” of a small minority that has resulted in restrictions on women and not the Pashtun culture.

Akram said that he regrets if his remarks were misunderstood or hurt anyone’s feelings. “There was no disrespect meant to the Pashtun culture which is highly progressive and deserves full respect all across the world,” he explained.

In response to his comment, people in Afghanistan and in Pakistan flowed to social media and told Akram that Afghan women were cabinet members in Afghanistan at a time when Pakistan was not born. Schools for girls were opened in 1921 in Afghanistan when Pakistan did not exist.