Mediaboss Marketing

Rights and freedom

UN calls on Taliban to reveal whereabouts of Matiullah Wesa, head of Pen Path, taken into detention by gunmen from outside a mosque after prayers

Tue 28 Mar 2023 03.50 EDT

A prominent activist for girls education has been arrested in Afghanistan, in the latest sign that hardline Taliban authorities are determined to stamp out all opposition to their ban on girls and women attending school or universities.

Matiullah Wesa, founder and leader of the Pen Path charity, had been fighting for education for Afghan children who were out of school both boys and girls for more than a decade, with a focus on rural areas of southern Afghanistan.

Top diplomats and human rights groups, including a senior UN envoy and Amnesty International, called for his immediate release.

He could have left Afghanistan, but he stayed despite the risks to work for his people, advocating for education rights for girls, said Samira Hamidi, Amnesty Internationals South Asia campaigner.

Wesa was detained after attending prayers at his local mosque on Friday, his brother, Attaullah Wesa, told the Guardian: Matiullah was at the mosque in Kabul, offering his prayers. When he stepped out, there were gunmen in two vehicles who ran towards him to arrest him.

Our elder brother was with Matiullah and they tried to question the men, asked them to show ID, but they showed him their weapons instead and took him away, he said, adding that the family was very concerned about Matiullahs safety.

Wesa set up Pen Path with his brother in 2009. At first, they worked with religious scholars and tribal elders to build community support for educating all children, set up schools in villages where there was no government education, and sent mobile classrooms to the most remote areas.

After the Taliban took control of Afghanistan and barred female students from high school, and then from primary school and university, he led high-profile calls for classes to restart, sharing photos and videos of protests usually in private buildings, after harsh crackdowns on public demonstrations.

His message focused on public demand for girls schools, and their right to an education under Islamic law. Men, women, elderly, young, everyone from every corner of the country is asking for the Islamic rights to education for their daughters, he wrote in one of his last tweets before his arrest.

On 21 March, the Persian new year which normally marks the start of the school year in Afghanistan, Pen Path launched a new campaign that angered Taliban authorities, Attaullah said.

It is our basic right education for all and they are not happy about it, he said. The family had been warned that intelligence services were investigating them.

We were informed last month by some of the tribal elders that the Talibans intelligence wanted to arrest Matiullah. We talked to them to help negotiate with the Taliban government to solve this problem they had with our group, he said.

Attaullah says he is determined to keep Pen Paths work going, despite Taliban pressure and the threat to their safety. In our campaigns, we are only asking for the basic rights of our people, what they want. We will not stop our work. They will not stop us, he said.

The UN called on the Taliban to clarify (Wesas) whereabouts, the reasons for his arrest and to ensure his access to legal representation and contact with family. The deputy head of the EU mission in Kabul called his detention shocking and also demanded his release.

Afghanistan is the only country in the world to bar girls and young women from education because of their sex, with the ban thought to be a personal order from the Talibans reclusive and ultra-conservative supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada. The group claims it is only a temporary bar, until Islamic conditions are met, but critics say that is simply an excuse for a decision which has no religious justification.

The Taliban have refused to detail what the conditions are, or when schools might reopen. A similar de facto ban brought in when they took control of much of Afghanistan in 1996 lasted until they were ousted from power in 2001.

However, there has been criticism of the ruling from within the groups own ranks. Many senior Taliban have been educating their own daughters secretly, in Afghanistan or abroad, and a few have even publicly criticised the ban.

The Taliban did not respond to requests for comment.

{{topLeft}}

{{bottomLeft}}

{{topRight}}

{{bottomRight}}

{{.}}

See the article here:
Founder of Afghan girls school project arrested in Kabul - The Guardian