Europe 1 with AFP 3:49 p.m., March 27, 2022
In Afghanistan, the Taliban have closed schools for young girls.
Nevertheless, Afghan women intend to organize demonstrations.
A demonstration has already taken place on Saturday March 27, but it was quickly dispersed by the Taliban.
Associations for the defense of women's rights in Afghanistan want to organize demonstrations if the Taliban do not reopen next week secondary schools for girls, closed on Wednesday after reopening, they announced on Sunday.
"We call on the authorities to reopen schools for secondary school girls within a week," activist Halima Nasari said at a press conference in Kabul organized by four Afghan women's rights groups.
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"If the Islamic Emirate (name of the Taliban regime, editor's note) does not do this, we will reopen the schools ourselves and we will organize peaceful demonstrations in the country until we obtain satisfaction," she warned.
"People can no longer accept such oppression. We do not accept any justification from the authorities" for the closure of schools, added the activist.
"Women, teachers and girls must go out into the streets and demonstrate"
On Saturday, around twenty women and girls demonstrated in the capital to cries of "open the schools!".
The demonstration lasted less than an hour, before being dispersed by armed Taliban.
"Women, teachers and girls must come out into the streets and demonstrate," said Zarghuna Ibrahimi, a high school student present at the press conference.
"The international community must support us," she added.
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Islamist fundamentalists, in power since August 2021, reversed their decision on Wednesday to allow girls to study in secondary school, just hours after the long-announced reopening.
The announcement, as brutal as it was unexpected, took place when many students had already returned to class.
The Ministry of Education did not give a clear explanation for its about-face.
"Our policy is not against girls' education," Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen told AFP on Saturday.
According to him, "there are some practical issues" that "have not been resolved before the scheduled opening deadline" on Wednesday.
Exclusion of women from public space
The return of girls to secondary school followed that of boys, as well as girls but only in primary school, who had been authorized to resume classes, two months after the capture of Kabul by the Taliban.
In seven months of governance, the Islamists have swept away 20 years of freedom won by women and imposed a multitude of restrictions on them.
They are barred from many government jobs, restricted in how they dress, and banned from traveling alone outside their towns.
They also arrested and detained women activists - some for several weeks - who had demonstrated for women's rights.
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Saturday's protest was the first in many weeks to take place in the capital.
On Sunday, the dreaded Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which replaced the former government's Women's Affairs Ministry, ordered the separation of women and men in Kabul's public parks.
Women can go on Sundays, Mondays and Tuesdays, and men on other days, he said.
"It is not an order from the Islamic Emirate but the order from our God that foreign men and women among themselves do not meet in the same place," Mohammad Yahya Aref, an official, told AFP. of the ministry.
"Thus, the women will be able to enjoy their time and their freedom. No man will be there to disturb them," he added, adding that the religious police were already ensuring that this order was respected.