Ban on Girls' Education Not Permanent, Says Taliban's Interior Minister

He was arrested by the Taliban last year too, and was released after several days of torture.

The Taliban have not reacted to the reports of his arrest.

According to the sources, about twelve members of the Taliban raided Shahin's house and transferred him to an unknown location.

Musa Shahin sings songs about Panjshir, a province which is one of the main bases of the resistance forces against the Taliban.

Although the Taliban denies violence against civilians in Panjshir, but in more than a year of the group's rule, it has been reported that civilians have been arrested, tortured and in some cases killed on the charge of "collaborating with the resistance front" in the province.

According to OCHA, about 1.1 million female students in Afghanistan have been deprived of their right to education. Furthermore, more than 100,000 female students have been banned from attending universities across Afghanistan.

It has been more than 490 days since the Taliban banned girls from attending schools in Afghanistan.

After regaining control in August 2021, the Taliban imposed restrictions on Afghan women.

Human rights defenders have called the Taliban's anti-women policies "gender apartheid" in Afghanistan.

He added that such a government can reduce the threats caused by terrorist attacks, refugees, and drug trafficking in the region.

The Iranian foreign minister made these remarks on Tuesday at the meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO) in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan.

Abdollahian added that Iran is one of the countries that played the main role in designing and approving the "ECO Support Policy for Afghanistan" and supports its implementation.

He said, "This support is in addition to bilateral aid to solve the problems of the people of Afghanistan and prevent humanitarian crises."

Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are members of the Economic Cooperation Organisation.

January 24 is celebrated as World Education Day, and on this occasion, diplomats and officials of international organisations have criticised the closure of schools and universities for Afghan women and girls.

For more than 490 days, the Taliban has prevented the reopening of girls' schools in Afghanistan.

On World Education Day, even Antonio Guterres, the United Nations Secretary General, called on the Taliban to reverse the ban on education for women.

Guterres said that now is the time to end all discriminatory practices that hinder access to education.

Similarly, the Charge d'Affaires of the US Embassy in Afghanistan, said that it is difficult to celebrate World Education Day while Afghan girls are deprived of the right to education.

The power outage in Uzbekistan over the recent weeks had caused Kabul and several provinces in Afghanistan to face electricity blackouts.

According to the Taliban, the technical problems in the production of electricity in Uzbekistan have been resolved and the country has announced its readiness to export 250 megawatts of electricity within the next 24 hours.

Earlier, the foreign minister of the Taliban had asked Uzbekistan not to cut off electricity exports to Afghanistan during difficult circumstances.

Most of Afghanistan's electricity is imported from Uzbekistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, and Tajikistan.