Video shows the Taliban whipping women protesting for their right to study
A guard is seen chasing students with a whip
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Your support makes all the difference.Afghan women were whipped by the Taliban for protesting for their right to education after they were denied entry to a university in northeastern Afghanistan for not wearing the burqa.
Videos shared on social media showed women students being assaulted by the Taliban government's vice and virtue personnel outside the gates of Badakhshan University on Sunday.
One of the guards can be seen chasing after students with a whip to disperse the crowd banging on the gates for the authorities to allow them to enter.
The students claimed they were denied entry inside the university for not wearing a burqa – the Taliban-mandated dress code for women.
The protesting women in dozens, wearing long black dresses and headscarves, chanted slogans of “access to education”.
Naqibullah Qazizada, the president of the university, acknowledged the crackdown on students by the Taliban’s vice and virtue officer and assured them the student requests would be realized, Khamma Press reported.
Local officials of the ministry of order reportedly said the decision to shut gates in front of the students was taken by the guidance committee of the university.
Since wresting power on 15 August last year, the Taliban have been clamping down on women’s rights by barring them access to public spaces and education.
The Islamist militants in May ordered all Afghan women to wear an all-covering burqa in public that veils their faces in one of the harshest attacks on women’s rights.
The group has prohibited girls from attending school above the sixth standard for over a year, prompting women to stage protests across the country.
Last week, Afghan women staged protests in front of several schools in different areas of the capital Kabul against the closures of secondary and high schools for girls. The demonstrators held placards with the slogan: “Education without fear.”
Earlier this month, women protesting over the suicide bombing of an education centre in Kabul a few days ago were beaten and even shot at by Taliban fighters, eyewitnesses said.
The Taliban’s security forces opened fire to disburse the demonstration outside the Kaaj Educational Centre in Dasht-e-Barchi, a Hazara-dominant neighbourhood in western Kabul, where a group of women aged between 18-24 were staging a protest.
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