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THE BELOW (updated 12 MAR 2022)
When one hurts or kills a women
one hurts or kills hummanity and is an antrocitie.
Gino d'Artali
and: My mother (1931-1997) always said to me <Mi
figlio, non esistono notizie <vecchie> perche puoi imparare qualcosa da
qualsiasi notizia.> Translated: <My son, there is no such thing as so
called 'old' news because you can learn something from any news.>
Gianna d'Artali
Read all about the Zan, zendagi, azadi!>
(Women, life, freedom) Revolution in Iran by clicking here
The Guardian
23 Dec 2022
Guardian staff and agencies
<<Taliban minister defends closing universities to women as global
backlash grows
The minister of higher education in Afghanistan's Taliban government has
defended his decision to ban women from universities - a decree that
triggered a global backlash and protests inside the country.
Afghanistan's Taliban-run administration announced earlier this week it
had closed universities to women partly due to female students not ad-hering
to its interpretation of the Islamic dress code and interaction between
students of different genders. Female university students we-re turned
away from campuses on Wednesday and the higher educa-tion ministry said
their access would be suspended <until further no-tice>. Dozens of women
gathered outside Kabul University on Thurs-day to protest in the first
major public demonstration in the capital the decision. In the capital,
about two dozen women marched in the streets, chanting for freedom and
equality. <All or none. Don't be afraid. We are together,> they chanted.
In video obtained by The Associated Press, one woman said Taliban
security forces used violence to disperse the group. <The girls were
beaten and whipped,> she said. <They also brought military women with
them, whipping the girls. We ran away, some girls were arrested. I don't
know what will happen.> US secretary of state Antony Blinken said the
Taliban were trying to sentence Afghanistan's women <to a dark future
without opportunity> by barring them from attending universities.
<Afghan women deserve better. Afghanistan deserves better,> he later
tweeted. <The Taliban have just definitively set back their objective of
being accepted by the international community.> Acting higher educa-tion
minister Neda Mohammad Nadeem, in his first comments on the matter, told
Afghan state broadcaster RTA that several issues had prompted the
decision. <We told girls to have proper hijab but they didn't and they
wore dresses like they are going to a wedding ceremony,> he said.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/23/taliban-minister-defends-closing-universities-to-women-as-global-backlash-grows
Read also <<Thursday briefing: What next for the thousands of women in
Afghanistan banned from studying?>...here
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/22/first-edition-afghanistan-women-university-ban
The Guardian
22 Dec 2022
Opinion by Gordon Brown
<<The Taliban are taking away women's right to learn. The world can't
afford to stay silent
This week, the Taliban made a bombshell announcement that they will ban
women from attending university or teaching in Afghanistan. It is a
decision that has done more in a single day to entrench discri-mination
against women and girls and set back their empowerment than any other
single policy decision I can remember. Since the Taliban returned to
power, girls have been banned from attending secondary school. Now they
are being banned from primary school. Thousands of female government
workers have been told to stay at home. Other recent rulings prevent
women from travelling without a male relative or attending mosques or
religious seminaries. Last month, girls and women were banned from
entering public places, including parks. The rest of the world cannot
now stay silent in the illusory hope that these bans are temporary. It
is time to take the Taliban on - and it is the Muslim nations across the
world that follow Islamic law to uphold the education of women and
girls, and believe it central to Islamic teaching, that are in the best
position to lead the charge. Muslim countries hold the key to restoring
women's and girls' rights in Afghanistan. In the two days since the
Taliban's university ban, we have already heard some welcome voices.
Qatar's ministry of foreign affairs, which has been a mediator between
the Taliban and the west, immediately condemned the actions and
expressed <concern and disappointment> as it urged Afghanistan to end
its ban. The Saudi foreign ministry expressed <surprise> and <regret>,
and called on the government to reverse the decision. It was, it said,
<contrary to giving Afghan women their full legitimate rights, foremost
of which is the right to education, which contributes to supporting
security, stability, development and prosperity in Afghanistan>. After
the UAE representative to the UN labelled the move an attempt to secure
nothing less than the <the erasure of women from public life>, an
official UAE statement said the decision not only <violates fundamental
rights>, but <the teachings of Islam, and must be quickly resolved>. And
it is these demands for Islamic law to be upheld that could secure a
reversal of the policy. The Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC),
alongside the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), is in a position to use
its platform to demand that Afghanistan's de facto authorities end this
assault on women's rights. Unity on this issue is possible because
religious teaching upholds girls' right to education. <Iqra>, meaning to
read, is the first word of the Qu'ran. And the rest of the Muslim world
follows mainstream Islamic teaching that promotes girls' education.
Indeed, <the seeking of knowledge is obligatory for every Muslim>,
states Al-Tirmidhi, Hadith 74, one of the six canonical teachings in
Sunni Islam, which emphasises the deep commitment to learning - by men
and women - across the Arab world.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/dec/22/taliban-women-right-to-learn-afghanistan-muslim-nations
The Guardian
Supported by The Guardian Org
By Zahra Joya
21 Dec 2022
<<'Being a girl is a heavy crime': Afghan women in despair over
university ban
It was late evening in Kabul, and Sabra*, a fourth-year medical student,
saw a WhatsApp message appear on her phone. In a university chat group
for 38 classmates, a friend had shared a news report suggesting the
Taliban had banned women from higher edu-cation. <Girls, what's going on
here?> the friend wrote. <Is it true?> On Tuesday, Afghanistan's
ministry of higher education issued a letter to all government and
private universities, ordering an indefinite ban on university education
for women. The country's hardline Islamist rulers had already banned
most female Afghan teenagers from secondary school education. Sabra said
the news felt like cold water. <I studied with all my heart for four
years,> she said, speaking by telephone from Kabul. <I only had one year
left to graduate from university.> The decision was quickly and globally
condemned, with the International Rescue Committee denouncing the ban as
a <chilling step backwards for Afghanistan>. The US government said it
was unacceptable, with the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken,
announcing that he was <deeply dismayed>.
Rina Amiri, a US special envoy for Afghan women and girls, said the ban
removed any doubt that the Taliban were reverting to the extre-me
policies they enacted in the 1990s, when they last controlled
Afghanistan. <The world must reject, as Afghans have, that this is about
culture or religion. In Afghan history, only the Taliban have enacted
policies forbidding girls' education. In no Muslim-majority country, in
no place in the world, are girls denied an education,> Amiri wrote on
Twitter. <We are at an inflection point. As a global community, we must
take a firm stand against these extreme poli-cies. Failing to do so
could embolden the Taliban, inspire hardliners elsewhere [and] imperil
the rights of women, girls and at-risk populations far beyond
Afghanistan.> On Wednesday morning, staff and security at universities
in Kabul were turning away female students who had arrived to study. In
the eastern city of Jalalabad, video footage showed groups of men and
women protesting outside a campus. Sabra said she had heard rumours
months ago that the Taliban would ban women from higher education but
said she could not believe it. <Was this not my right as a girl who came
here … with money from embroidering and weaving carpets and who wanted
to become a doctor? It's 4:30 in the morning Kabul time, and I could not
sleep for a moment tonight,> she said. <I can’t hold back my tears.>
Another female student wrote on Facebook she was also having trouble
sleeping. Sakina Sama said it had taken three years after leaving
secondary school to persuade her father to agree to let her enrol in a
university, only to now be banned by the government. <Being a girl is a
heavy crime and tonight I want to curse my creator for creating me so
that I can be so miserable and humiliated,> she wrote. <No words can
express my anger tonight. Goodbye life.> A number of Afghan civil and
women's rights activists abroad have
issued a joint statement calling for the Taliban to reverse <this
medieval crime> that will <impose absolute isolation on Afghan women and
girls and expose women to violence, poverty and exploitation>.
Afghanistan's former intelligence chief, Rahmatullah Nabil, who is now
in exile, wrote on Twitter that the Taliban sought with the ban <to keep
society in the dark because they consider their survival and growth
dependent on the ignorance of the young generation>. Another female
student, Zainab Rezaei, 23, learned about the closure of universities to
girls through Facebook. Enrolled at a private university in Kabul,
Rezaei said that in the past year she comforted her sister, who is in
grade 11 and was not allowed to go to school after the earlier ban on
girls. But now she is also stuck at home. <I was at my aunt's house
tonight,> she said, adding that her mother called her to tell her to
stay strong. <I was very sad and I don't know what our future will be. I
feel full of hatred.> >>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2022/dec/21/afghanistan-women-react-university-ban-taliban
France 24
21 Dec 2022
By Text Wires
<<Taliban prohibit university educations for Afghan women in latest
revocation of rights
Despite promising a softer rule when they seized power last year, the
Taliban have ratcheted up restrictions on all aspects of women's lives,
ignoring international outrage. <You all are informed to imme-diately
implement the mentioned order of suspending education of females until
further notice,> said a letter issued to all government and private
universities, signed by the Minister for Higher Education, Neda Mohammad
Nadeem. The spokesman for the ministry, Ziaullah Hashimi, who tweeted
the letter, confirmed the order in a text message to AFP. Washington
condemned the decision <in the strongest terms. The Taliban should
expect that this decision, which is in contravention to the commitments
they have made repeatedly and publicly to their own people, will carry
concrete costs for them,> State Department spokesman Ned Price told
reporters in Washington.
>>Online education is the only hope for Afghan schoolgirl, but it’s a
slog<<
The ban on higher education comes less than three months after thousands
of girls and women sat university entrance exams across the country,
with many aspiring to choose teaching and medicine as future careers.
The universities are currently on winter break and due to reopen in
March. >>
Read more here:
https://www.france24.com/en/asia-pacific/20221220-taliban-forbids-university-education-for-afghan-girls-nationwide
Jinha
13 Dec 2022
<<Afghan activist Zarifa Yaqobi released
News Center- Zarifa Yaqoubi, a women's rights activist, was de-tained in
Kabul on November 4 by the Taliban forces while holding a press
conference to announce the establishment of the Afghan Women's Movement
for Equality. After calls for her release, she was released from prison
yesterday. Fawzia Koofi, a former member of the Afghan parliament,
tweeted about the release of Zarifa Yaqobi. In her tweet, she wrote,
<Welcome dear, your fight and that of your companions is an example of
freedom fighters.> After the release of Zarifa Yaqobi, many human rights
organizations welcomed her release on social media platforms.>>
Source:
https://jinhaagency1.com/en/actual/afghan-activist-zarifa-yaqobi-released-32436
The Guardian
5 Dec 2022
By Haroon Siddique, Aubrey Allegretti and Pippa Crerar
<<Afghans died because of Raab’s delay in reviewing documents, officials
told
A meeting of Ministry of Justice officials at which Dominic Raab’s
conduct was discussed was told <people had died> in the Afghanistan
evacuation because of his refusal to review documents in formats which
he did not like, the Guardian has been told. Raab, who was formerly
foreign secretary but was recently reappointed as justice secretary and
deputy prime minister, is the subject of an investigation into bullying
allegations, first revealed by the Guardian. They have led to Rishi
Sunak's judgment being called into question for bringing him back into
the cabinet. In fresh allegations, an MoJ official told the Guardian
that a 6 May meeting of deputy directors who work in policy, which was
ostensibly to discuss the performance of Raab’s private office,
<degenerated into a 45-minute discussion of their [the deputy
directors'] experiences of bullying by Raab>. They said that while the
deputy directors praised the performance of the private office, all had
witnessed - and in one case been subjected to - alleged bullying by Raab.
The official added: <There was a long discussion to clarify that his
behaviour stepped over the mark from forthright to unprofessional. One
deputy director relayed the extraordinary information that, when Raab
was at [the] FCDO (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office), people
had died when advice pertaining to the evacuation of Afghanistan had
been delayed because he didn't like the format-ting.> Raab has
previously faced criticism over his role in the chaotic Afghanistan
evacuation after the fall of Kabul in August last year, when he was on
holiday in Crete. In evidence to the foreign affairs select committee,
whistleblower and ex-FCDO official Raphael Marshall said Raab took
<hours to engage> when he was asked to personally approve exceptional
cases and returned files asking for them to be submitted in a different
spreadsheet format. Marshall said he believed the delay meant some
people never made it to Kabul's airport.>>
Read more here:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/dec/05/afghans-died-because-of-dominic-raab-delay-in-reviewing-documents-officials-told
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