Afghan women protesters gathered in front of several schools in different areas of Kabul city and protested against the closures of secondary and high schools for girls. The women protesters held placards with the slogan “education without fear”.
It has been reported that, among others, the Afghan women held these protests in front of Al Fath school in Macroriyan area and Maleka Sorraya school in the Taimani area of Kabul city.
In Afghanistan, with the return of the Taliban, it has been more than a year since secondary and high schools have been closed to Afghan girls. Taliban have also deprived women of work and political participation.
After the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, they immediately began rolling back the rights of women and girls. Women began to protest on the streets since Taliban’s first week in power, despite the grave risks they faced in doing so. Women and girls have protested the Taliban’s restrictive policies and have demanded the right to education, work, and justice.
These protests have always been met with violence. The Taliban response was brutal from the beginning, beating protesters, disrupting protests, and detaining and torturing journalists covering the demonstrations.
Dozens of women have been arrested and tortured for holding peaceful protests demanding their rights, amid mounting restrictions that have stripped away their freedoms.
Earlier too, women from all communities came together in Kabul and protested, chanting slogans against the Taliban regime, however, the Taliban violently supressed them. Then, female university students in provinces of Herat and Bamiyan followed suit and held protests, where they were similarly beaten up and dispersed. Next, women in Balkh province took to the street to protest the regime.
