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Kabul: According to AFP correspondents, the Taliban violently suppressed a small women’s rights demonstration on Thursday, firing rounds into the air and driving protestors back.A
group of six females gathered outside an eastern Kabul high school to urge that girls be allowed to return to secondary education after the Taliban banned them earlier this month.
Before Taliban guards seized it from them, the women unfurled a banner that read, “Don’t break our pens, don’t burn our books, don’t close our schools.”
Women protestors were pushed back as they sought to continue the rally, while a foreign journalist was shot with a rifle and prevented from filming.
According to AFP journalists, a Taliban fighter fired a quick burst of bullets into the air with his automatic rifle.
“They have the right to protest in our country like every other country. But they must inform the security institutes before,” he stated.
Following the Taliban’s takeover of power, isolated gatherings with women at the lead were held in towns around the country, including in the western city of Herat, where two people were killed.
However, since the government issued an order prohibiting unlicensed demonstrations and threatening “severe legal action” against violators, protests have dwindled.
Girls have been barred from attending secondary school for almost two weeks.
The Taliban adhere to a rigid interpretation of sharia law that separates men and women, as well as restricting women’s employment opportunities.
They claim that the necessary conditions must be in place before girls may return to school, but many Afghans remain sceptical.
