Afghan women protest expulsion of female students from university by Taliban

A group of women activists numbering over five thousand on Tuesday, took to the streets of Afghanistan’s capital Kabul, to protest the forceful expulsion of 40 female students from a Kabul University by Taliban authorities.

The demonstrators who included students, gathered outside the university campus, carrying placards with inscriptions such as “Education is our red line” and “Silence is treason.”

The demonstrators accused the Islamist Taliban-led Ministry of Higher Education of expelling the female students from the school, one of the country’s oldest and most revered institutions, as a way of denying girls the opportunity to be educated.

The Ministry had, in a statement on Monday confirmed that several women had been removed from the school for violating the university regulations.

One of the protesting women, Lilia Baseem, told journalists that the students were being attendingfor attending a rally after an education centre was bombed.

“The students were punished for attending a protest rally against the attack on the Kaaj education center."

Baseem said the students were singled out for taking part in the rally on September 30 following a suicide bombing at the private school in a western Kabul neighborhood that killed 53 people, including 46 girls and women.

Since the Taliban retook power in the Asian country in 2021, the administration has presented a hard line on female education as girls have been barred from attending certain schools.

The Taliban have also barred teenage girls in grades seven through 12 from attending school, according to women activists in the country.