Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Thursday, March 28th, 2024

Taliban Continue their Anti-Education Campaign

Taliban continue to create hindrances for Afghan boys and girls who want to get education. They have threatened to kill students of about 119 schools in Ghazni province, if they tried to attend their classes. That should not be surprising. During the Taliban government, all kinds of formal education were banned for boys while girls were imprisoned in their own homes.

The restriction produced huge harms to educational activities and caused the literacy rate to go down in Afghanistan. No doubt, Taliban's such actions were based in their narrow and extreme mindset towards the world. After their government was toppled in 2001, they have intensively tried to prevent Afghans from getting education by acid/gas attacks on students, setting fire to schools and threatening people to keep their children away from education. Regretfully, government's position in preventing damages caused by Taliban to education sector of Afghanistan has been quite pathetic.

The daring attitude of Taliban to prevent students of 119 schools from attending their classes in Ghazni means challenging the writ of the Afghan government. This is a defamation of a province that has been selected as 2013's center of Islamic civilization.

Local people say that the Taliban have taken this step to pressurize the provincial government to lift the ban on riding motorcycles. Taliban used motorcycles to launch terror attacks inside the Ghazni city and easily escape the scene. According to the people, security has become better since ridding motorbikes has been banned.

The step by Taliban to threat school going boys and girls establishes the fact that they have control and influence in the province at least equivalent to that of government, if not more. The MP's from Ghazni have called upon the Afghan security forces to take the matter as seriously and act immediately in securing life of school going boys and girls.

The issue in Ghazni, in fact, is an indicator of broader issue facing Afghanistan. And that is Taliban's presence in majority of Afghan districts. In some parts of Afghanistan, they have even their own provincial and district governors. This poses severe threats to security and stability of post-2014 Afghanistan when all the US-led international forces will be out of this country.