The Taliban prohibit books written by women from Afghan universities

The Taliban government has suppressed books written by women of the university education system in Afghanistan as part of a new ban which has also prohibited the teaching of human rights and sexual harassment.

Some 140 women’s pounds – including titles like “Safety in the Chemical Laboratory” – were part of 680 pounds deemed “concern” due to “anti -skaria and Taliban policies”.

The universities were also informed that they were no longer authorized to teach 18 subjects, a Taliban official saying that they were “in conflict with the principles of Sharia and the policy of the system”.

The decree is the last in a series of restrictions that the Taliban has since returned to power four years ago.

This week, the fiber optic internet was prohibited in at least 10 provinces on the orders of the supreme chief of the Taliban in a move, officials were to prevent immorality.

Although the rules had an impact on many aspects of life, women and girls have been particularly affected: they are prohibited from access to education in sixth year, with one of their last routes to additional training cut at the end of 2024, when the midwifery courses were quietly closed.

Now, even university subjects on women have been targeted: six of the 18 prohibitions specifically concern women, including gender and development, the role of women in the communication and sociology of women.

The Taliban government has declared that it respects women’s rights in accordance with their interpretation of Afghan culture and Islamic law.

A member of the Committee in Revision of Books confirmed the ban on books written by women, telling the BBC Afghan that “all the books written by women are not authorized to be taught”.

Zakia Adeli, the former Deputy Minister of Justice before the Taliban’s return and one of the authors who found their books on the prohibited list was not surprised by this decision.

“Given what the Taliban has done in the past four years, it was not eccentric to expect them to impose changes on the program,” she said.

“Given the Misogynous state of mind and policies of the Taliban, it is natural that when the women themselves are not allowed to study, their opinions, their ideas and their writings are also deleted.”

The new guidelines, which were seen by the BBC Afghan, were published in late August.

Ziaur Rahman Aryubi, deputy academic director of the Taliban government ministry of Higher Education, said in a letter to universities that decisions had been taken by a panel of “scholars and religious experts”.

In addition to Women’s books, the prohibition seems to have targeted books by Iranian authors or publishers, with a member of the BBC book review committee that he was designed to “prevent the infiltration of Iranian content” in the Afghan program “.

In the list of 50 pages sent to all the universities of Afghanistan, 679 titles appear, of which 310 are written by Iranian writers or published in Iran.

Two different people, including one in the books examination committee, Afghan BBC told that the decision was made to “prevent the infiltration of Iranian content” as part of the program.

Neighboring countries do not have an easy relationship, confusing themselves on issues such as water rights in recent years. Iran has also forced more than 1.5 million Afghans who have lived in the country on the other side of the border since January in the middle of the increase in anti-Afghan feeling.

But the decision worried certain teachers, with an teacher in an institution, who spoke under the guise of anonymity, saying that it feared that it is almost impossible to fill the gap.

“The books of Iranian authors and translators serve the main link between Afghan universities and the global university community. Their abolition creates a substantial emptiness in higher education,” he said.

A professor at the University of Kabul told the BBC that in such circumstances, they are forced to prepare manual chapters themselves, taking into account the things to do and not to do by the Taliban government.

But the crucial question is whether these chapters can be prepared according to global standards or not.

The BBC approached the Taliban Ministry of Education for the Comments.