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Good morning. On Tuesday, the Taliban announced that women would be banned from university education indefinitely. Yesterday, female students who showed up for class wept and consoled each other after they were turned away by security forces, forced to reckon with the loss of their imagined futures – and the further tightening of the same extreme misogynist ideology that the Taliban once promised would not return.
Cruel and far-reaching though the university ban is, it is not an isolated decision: last night, reports emerged (£) that girls have been banned from attending primary school, too.
These devastating new restrictions amount to a complete ban on education for women and girls – and they follow a series of recent edicts which suggest that the most fundamentalist voices within the Taliban are now dominant. Today’s newsletter, with the exiled journalist Zahra Joya, is about what this news means for women in Afghanistan today, and what it tells us about the country’s future. Here are the headlines.
In depth: ‘The women I’m speaking to are heartbroken, they are so angry’
Zahra Joya used to run Rukhshana Media, a news agency she founded to report on the lives of women and girls in Afghanistan, from a small office in Kabul. Forced to flee after the Taliban seized power last year, she relocated to London. Annie Kelly told part of her story in this 2021 interview; since then, Zahra has been on the cover of Time magazine, and continued to work with reporters – many in hiding – and sources in Afghanistan to publish Rukhshana in exile.
Zahra writes for the Guardian, too. In a wrenching piece yesterday, she set out what students facing the abrupt end of their education – even if they were close to graduating – told her. One of them is Sabra, a fourth-year medical student in Kabul who was a year from completing her course. “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?” Sabra said. “It’s 4:30 in the morning Kabul time, and I could not sleep for a moment tonight. I can’t hold back my tears.”
“The women I’m speaking to are heartbroken, they are so angry,” Zahra said. “You have to know how much their educations mean to them. It has been heartbreaking for me, too. But it is not a surprise. This is the new reality.”
What do the new decisions mean?
Women and girls already faced severe restrictions on their education in Afghanistan: most teenagers were banned from secondary education, while university classes were segregated, with women only allowed to be taught by female professors or old men. While women were allowed to sit entrance exams a few months ago, the subjects they were allowed to apply for were severely restricted. Last month, Rukhshana reported multiple sources saying that a total ban was in the works – and this week, women were excluded from all courses at state or private universities, effective immediately.
Now the Wall Street Journal reports (£) that the Taliban has banned girls from attending primary school, too – and in a gathering with private school directors, clerics and community representatives in Kabul, excluded women from teaching or working in any capacity in educational institutions. The meeting was also told that women could no longer attend mosques or religious seminaries, the WSJ said.
There were protests at the news about universities yesterday, with some men walking out of classes and exams in solidarity with their female peers. But Zahra (pictured below) also detects pockets of indifference, both at home and internationally.
“When we published our story about the plan, it was like it was just normal news,” she said. “It feels like people do not care about the freedom of women. There is anger too but we cannot forget that 460 days ago, there was the same reaction when female students were banned from secondary school – but it happened. I am not very optimistic. I really hope that Afghan people, especially the men, stand behind women and support them. But people are afraid.”
How does this compare to other recent developments?
Rukhshana’s recent coverage is a litany of despair: women denied protection from violent spouses in the courts. Increasing malnourishment among baby girls as families favour boys. Shariah law reinstated in full, and with it a return to public floggings and one public execution. New restrictions for women on work, driving, and going to funfairs or the gym.
One story that sticks in Zahra’s mind was about women reporting that the morality police are checking their smartphones with increasing frequency – looking for evidence of any kind of contact with men outside of their families and scrolling through photo galleries and text messages.
“It’s one simple example of what is happening,” Zahra said. “The morality police are working with the approval of the Taliban. Most of the women I know in the country, even my colleagues, leave their phones at home when they go outside now. They are not free.”
Why are things getting worse?
In the early months, Taliban officials repeatedly promised that they would bring “inclusive, Islamic government” that would honour women’s rights within the framework of Islamic law. Kandahar’s chief of morality police told the Observer that he did not “want people to be in a panic” and promised moderation. But those early assurances have been gradually undermined, sometimes with confusing or last-minute reversals of official policy, and whatever moderate voices held sway within the government now appear to have been conclusively silenced.
This week’s decisions follow the October appointment of a new higher education minister, Nida Mohammad Nadim, who is known to be a hardliner and said recently that “education for women “clashes with Islam and Afghan values”. Nadim was appointed by the supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, a firmly conservative figure based in Kandahar. “He has spoken very clearly about how happy he is about the direction Afghanistan is going in, how happy he is with the morality police,” Zahra said. “It is absolutely true [that the most conservative voices have prevailed].”
At the same time, she notes, there were plenty of reasons to be extremely sceptical about earlier claims of a more moderate approach. “They just lied,” she said. “And as time has passed and the international community has stopped paying attention or is silent, they have been encouraged to do more extreme things.”
What happens next?
There are still some ways the Taliban could worsen the plight of women in Afghanistan, from even greater restrictions on movement and work to increasing the use of flogging as punishment for perceived transgressions. Meanwhile, the Taliban appears ever more isolated internationally, with no likely prospect of western aid or diplomatic recognition with such hardline policies in place – though tens of millions in humanitarian relief funding still comes in, much of which reportedly ends up funnelled to the Taliban.
There are also reports that investors from those countries which were still willing to deal with Afghanistan – particularly China – are taking flight, with an attack on a hotel used by Chinese businessmen in Kabul earlier this month leading to Beijing’s complete withdrawal. All of this is part of why the devastating toll for women’s rights sits alongside an economic crisis which has left two thirds of households unable to meet their basic daily needs.
Zahra continues to report assiduously on the plight of women in her country, and sees signs of encouragement in the men walking out of universities alongside their female fellow students yesterday. But where Afghanistan goes from here, she says, is “a very sad question. When I look at how heartbreaking the stories we publish on Rukhshana are, I think, wow, can we find some joy? Some positive news? But I ask my colleagues, and they say, we can’t do this. We can’t find much reason for hope.”
What else we’ve been reading
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For the second consecutive Christmas, Alabama’s mine workers are on strike. Michael Sainato spoke to them and their families about how they have been trying to spread holiday cheer during such austere times. Nimo
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Martin Kettle makes the case for why Rishi Sunak is still less of an influence on the direction of the Conservative party than Nigel Farage: the fear among many Tories that Farage will return to “campaign in the next general election on an anti-immigration platform that will reshape British politics”. Archie
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This piece in the Atlantic (£) is a fascinating look into how individualism has shaped how people parent their children in public. Stephanie H. Murray argues it’s okay if we’re all a little inconvenienced and uncomfortable from time to time, to give children the space to grow – and parents the space to care for their offspring. Nimo
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The Guardian’s No 1 TV programme of 2022 is … The Bear, Christopher Storer’s intensely stressful depiction of grief and cooking which is, Lucy Mangan writes, “as frenetic, kinetic, immersive an experience as the lifestyle it depicts”. No arguments from me. The last few in the film and music lists are still to come, and here’s Keza MacDonald’s list of the top 20 games. Archie
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Will Smith’s Oscar slap is easily one of the top five most ridiculous and memorable moments of this year. For about a week it was all anyone could talk about. Steve Rose takes a look at the fallout, nine months later. Nimo
The front pages
In the Guardian’s print edition we lead this morning with “NHS braced for surge in patients after strikes by ambulance staff”. As with a number of other titles, our picture lead is Volodymyr Zelenskiy arriving in the US, where overnight he has addressed Congress. The Times’ splash headline is a truncated version of ours: “Hospitals braced for surge” while the Telegraph has “NHS to be offered new pay deal to end strikes”. “NHS turmoil to last days – with bigger strikes in new year” – that’s the i while the Mirror says there is “Deadly silence” from Sunak and Barclay who “won’t talk pay” to ambulance crews and health workers. “Tories crippling the NHS” it adds in a banner. The Daily Express has “Fears sick are suffering at home as 999 calls plummet”. Another seasonal staple in the Daily Mail: “Driving home for Xmas? It’s a petrol rip-off”. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph and the wee donkey … Line of Duty is back” – the Sun celebrates a TV “Xmas prezzie for fans”.
Today in Focus
Christmas in Kyiv
Kyiv residents this year are facing the holiday season expecting blackouts and missile attacks. Isobel Koshiw reports from Ukraine’s capital
Cartoon of the day | Steve Bell
The Upside
A bit of good news to remind you that the world’s not all bad
Paraplegic dancer Joel Brown and ballerina Eve Mutso have brought their show 111 to large towns and cities in India. 111 was already well established, having been created over four years ago and has toured in England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and Georgia, selling out in the 2019 Edinburgh fringe – but it wasn’t just the impressive performances that captivated audiences in India.
While the show is not about disability rights or inclusion, it has left a massive impression in India, a country that is significantly lacking in accessibility for those living with disabilities. 111 was a one of a kind experience: visually impaired people were provided with a touch tour before the show and then given the chance listen to an audio guide that can be downloaded on phones that runs through the performance.
Sign up here for a weekly roundup of The Upside, sent to you every Sunday
Bored at work?
And finally, the Guardian’s crosswords to keep you entertained throughout the day – with plenty more on the Guardian’s Puzzles app for iOS and Android. Until tomorrow.
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