By: Rukhshana Media
Students in Afghanistan who have been banned from attending classes because they are women have started a new protest to be allowed back into universities with the slogan “All or none!”, calling on their male counterparts to boycott class until women are allowed back into the classroom.
In a letter sent to Rukhshana Media at the start of the academic year, a cohort of female students from different universities across the country wrote that the men of the country need to stand up for them and demand women’s rights alongside them.
“We believe that your hands are not stained with the blood of people, you have not fired a bullet and you have not detonated a bomb,” the open letter says. “And you have a conscience, you know how hard we worked and the nightmares we faced to be admitted to university.”
The letter states that the Taliban only allowing men to go to classes is against “our common aspirations for a progressive, self-sufficient, free, and equal Afghanistan.”
The letter reminds the men of a slogan, first coined three months ago in Nangarhar province when some men protested their peers being barred from attending exams because they were women, “All or none!”
It calls on the men of Afghanistan to remember their promises and implored them that the women of Afghanistan are waiting on them to create another legend with their demands for women’s rights.
“Millions of girls will look at your example with teary eyes and admire your courage and companionship,” the letter says.
“We call on you to boycott the universities and let the Taliban know that when a nation makes a decision, they can face the collapse of dictatorial structures.”
A sixth-semester law and political science student at one of the country’s universities tells Rukhshana Media the pain of being a woman runs very deep. “It is very painful and fragile. I am very sorry that I am being discriminated against because I am a girl,” Sooda Rahmani says.
“We don’t want to fight anymore and we ask you to show us a little indulgence and boycott the university. This is the best way of civil resistance,” she adds.
Students of Balkh Faculty of Literature: “We stand by the promise we made”
A group male students from Balkh University Faculty of Literature have boycotted their classes in solidarity with their female counterparts who are not allowed to attend. They also issued their own letter to the Faculty stating that they will not attend classes until the ban on girls’ education is lifted.
It follows on from a letter they wrote at on December 24 last year to the Faculty that they will not attend classes until the university opens their gates to girls. In the latest letter, the students state, “We stand by the promise we made.”
The new academic year began on March 6 with universities reopening, but only to male students, after the Taliban affirmed its decree to ban girls and women from education above grade six last week.
