The G7 foreign ministers said in a statement released on Thursday that the actions taken by the Taliban against women in Afghanistan may constitute a “crime against humanity.”
The ministers, who met via videoconference, called on the Taliban regime to reverse its decisionPreventing women from studying at the university and ban girls from secondary education.
And they warn Kabul of the possible consequences before the International Criminal Court, which is sitting in The Hague: “Gender-based persecution may constitute a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute, and Afghanistan is a state party to it.”
They warned that “Taliban policies that seek to remove women from public life will have consequences for our country’s relations with the Taliban.”
“The recent measures taken by the Taliban, which come on top of the previous cumulative measures restricting the enjoyment of human rights and basic freedoms for women and girls in Afghanistan, are very worrying and appear to constitute a systematic policy,” she laments.
At a news conference in Berlin with her Danish counterpart, Germany’s foreign minister, Annalina Berbock, reiterated the point, describing the Taliban’s recent decisions against female education “as another step towards the age of the caves.”
But she is not the only one, she said, noting that in recent months the Taliban have doubled the restrictions imposed on the freedom imposed on women: “They no longer only have the right to study, but they no longer have the right to go to parks, to leave their homes without a veil.”
The Taliban’s minister of higher education said in an interview with state television on Thursday that universities in Afghanistan are forbidden to women because they “did not abide by the dress code.”
Those students who went to university […] “She did not follow the instructions on the hijab,” said Nada Muhammad Nadeem. He added that the headscarf, which covers the head and neck, is “a duty in Islam”.
The ban on higher education in Afghanistan comes less than three months after thousands of girls sat university entrance exams. Universities are currently in winter break and are expected to reopen in March.
Most teenage girls in the country have them He was already banned from secondary educationWhich severely limits admission to the university.
Resolution “neither Muslim nor human”, judges Turkey
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Thursday that this decision was “neither Islamic nor humane”. “This prohibition is neither Islamic nor humane. We reject this ban, and we don’t think it’s fair. Let us hope, God willing, that they will give up this decision, the minister said in a press conference.
How does educating women hurt humanity? Mr. Cavusoglu asked.
Turkey, whose population is majority Muslim, is the only member state of theNATO It has kept an open embassy in Kabul since the Taliban came to power in August 2021.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Naser Kanani said in a statement that Iran, which borders Turkey and Afghanistan, also expressed regret “to learn that Afghan girls and women face obstacles in studying at universities.”
He added that Tehran hopes Afghan officials will quickly pave the way for the resumption of girls’ education at all levels.
Iran has high levels of female education, but the country is currently under fire from Western countries for its violent crackdown on protests that have rocked the Islamic Republic since September.
And after the killing of a young Iranian Kurd who was arrested by the morality police, they turned into a protest movement against the regime.
The United States condemned “in the strongest terms” the Taliban’s decision, which Paris found “extremely shocking”, while the United Kingdom criticized “a dangerous step backward”.
With offices of AFP in Istanbul and Kabul
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