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Kabul University bans for women

The Taliban-appointed chancellor of Kabul University has closed the school’s doors to women until “an Islamic environment has been created” despite initial promises that the new government would not bar women from public life.

Chancellor Mohammad Ashraf Ghairat wrote on his unverified Twitter account that due to a lack of female instructors, women would be temporarily excluded from learning and teaching at the university to enforce strict gender separation under Sharia law.

“As long as real Islamic environment is not provided for all, women will not be allowed to come to universities or work. Islam first,” Mohammad Ashraf Ghairat said on his official Twitter account.

Earlier on Monday, Ghairat tweeted in Pashto that the university was working on a plan to accommodate teaching female students but did not say when this plan would be completed by.

“Due to shortage of female lecturers, we are working on a plan for male lecturers to be able to teach female students from behind a curtain in the classroom. That way an Islamic environment would be created for the female students to get education,” he wrote on Twitter.

His appointment as Kabul University’s chancellor by the Taliban was met with a storm of criticism over his lack of credentials. Ghairat countered those assessments on Twitter, saying he saw himself “fully qualified to hold this chair.”

Kabul University bans for women
Curtain Divides Men, Women at Kabul, Afghanistan, University

He also laid out his vision for the institution Tuesday, saying Kabul University’s aim is to become a hub for “all real Muslims around the world to gather, research and study” and to “Islamicize the modern science.”

“I am here to announce that we will be welcoming pro-Muslim scholars and students to benefit from a real Islamic environment,” he wrote on Twitter.

The Taliban, who ruled over Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001 but were forced from power after a US-led invasion, have historically treated women as second-class citizens, subjecting them to violence, forced marriages and a near-invisible presence in the country.

After they reclaimed the capital, Kabul, in August, the Taliban’s leadership claimed that it would not enforce such draconian conditions this time in power.

Women have so far been allowed to continue their university education. But the Taliban has mandated the segregation of genders in classrooms and said female students, lecturers and employees must wear hijabs in accordance with the group’s interpretation of Sharia law.

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