Taliban bans women from flights without a male guardian

The Asharq Al-Awsat reported, two Afghan airline officials said Saturday that Afghanistan's Taliban rulers refused to allow dozens of women to board several flights, including some overseas, because they were traveling without a male guardian.

The Associated Press said that the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions from the Taliban, said dozens of women who arrived at Kabul's international airport Friday to board domestic and international flights were told they couldn't do so without a male guardian.

The officials said that some of the women were dual nationals returning to their homes overseas, including some from Canada, according to one of the officials. Women were denied boarding on flights to Islamabad, Dubai and Turkey on Kam Air and the state-owned Ariana Airline.

One official said that the order came from the Taliban leadership.

He said that by Saturday, some women traveling alone were given permission to board an Ariana Airlines flight to western Herat province, the official said. However, by the time the permission was granted they had missed their flight.

The airport's president and police chief, both from the Taliban movement and both Islamic clerics, were meeting Saturday with airline officials.

The official said: “They are trying to solve it.”

It was still unclear whether the Taliban would exempt air travel from an order issued months ago requiring women traveling more than 45 miles (72 kilometers) to be accompanied by a male relative.

Female foreign ministers call Taliban to reverse their decision on girls’ education

This latest assault on women's rights in Taliban-run Afghanistan comes just days after the all-male religiously driven government broke its promise to allow girls to return to school after the sixth grade.

The move enraged the international community, which has been reluctant to recognize the Taliban-run government since the Taliban swept into power last August, fearing they would revert to their harsh rule of the 1990s. The Taliban's refusal to open up education to all Afghan children also infuriated large swaths of the Afghan population. On Saturday, dozens of girls demonstrated in the Afghan capital demanding the right to go to school.

After the Taliban's ban on girls education beyond the sixth grade, women's rights activist Mahbouba Seraj went on Afghanistan's TOLO TV to ask: “How do we as a nation trust you with your words anymore? What should we do to please you? Should we all die?”

Taliban orders girl high schools remain closed, leaving students in tears

An Afghan charity called PenPath, which runs dozens of "secret' schools with thousands of volunteers, is planning to stage countrywide protests to demand the Taliban reverse its order, said Matiullah Wesa, PenPath founder.

On Saturday at the Doha Forum 2022 in Qatar, Roya Mahboob, an Afghan businesswoman who founded an all-girl robotics team in Afghanistan, was given the Forum Award for her work and commitment to girls education..

In an interview after receiving the award, Mahboob called on the many global leaders and policy makers attending the forum to press the Taliban to open schools for all Afghan children.

Taliban orders shop owners in western Afghanistan to behead mannequins

The robotics team fled Afghanistan when the Taliban returned to power but Mahboob said she still hoped a science and technology center she had hoped to build in Afghanistan for girls could still be constructed.

She said: “I hope that the international community, the Muslim communities (have not) forgotten about Afghanistan and (will) not abandon us,”adding that "Afghanistan is a poor country. It doesn’t have enough resources. And if you take (away) our knowledge, I don’t know what’s going to happen."

Source: aawsat