The group sparked international outrage and confusion Wednesday when it rejected an agreement allowing teenage girls to go to high school, just a week after the education ministry announced that schools would be open to all students. U.S. diplomats were so optimistic that the Taliban would deliver on their promise to hold a joint Doha Forum event in Qatar this weekend that would kick-start the process of granting the group diplomatic recognition. She had booked a seat for the Taliban at a panel on a girls’ education forum in which a Taliban spokesman would discuss the role of women with Afghan activists. The sudden upheaval undermined the argument that a more “moderate” leadership now dominates the Taliban, and that optimism was further blurred this weekend when the group ordered Afghan television stations to remove the BBC newscasts in Pasto and Perseic Persia. The BBC said in a statement on Sunday: “This is a worrying development in a time of uncertainty and turmoil for the people of Afghanistan. More than 6 million Afghans consume BBC independent and impartial television journalism every week Western officials have made it clear that diplomatic recognition will be impossible if the decision to educate the girls is not reversed. The move will also make it harder for the international community to raise money for an international conference of promises next week, and will require tougher handling of any cash raised so as not to Thomas West, the US special envoy for Afghanistan, said: “I was surprised by last Wednesday’s coup and people reacted to it by condemning this move. It is a violation primarily of the trust of the Afghan people. “I do not think hope has been lost. “I hope we will see a reversal of this decision in the coming days.” However, West defended the US commitment to the Taliban, saying a complete diplomatic rift would mean the abandonment of 40 million Afghans amid growing concerns about a possible famine in the country. “We are talking about the details of an urgent humanitarian response, the need for more than a humanitarian response, a policy not just to admire the problem of a damaged banking sector but to find ways to fix it, a Central Bank professionalism so that the international The economic community can start to trust it, we are talking about terrorism and we are talking about women’s rights. “One of the first times we sat down in October in a formal setting, we were asked, ‘Please put our civil servants – 500,000 – back to work.’ We thought that a reasonable place to start, given the sector that was so popular in the international community was education. We also had requests from them. Number one, women and girls could attend at all levels in large parts of Afghanistan. Second we wanted to see a monitoring mechanism and third we wanted to have a serious and rigorous curriculum. “In the months that followed, the international community received the necessary reassurances, and most importantly, the Afghan people were told on March 23 that we would see girls attending secondary school, and that did not happen.” Hosna Jalil, a former interior minister, was one of many Afghan women in Doha who claimed that the Taliban would not be able to keep their request for education secret. He said the last 20 years have not been lost, but they have left a positive legacy. “We have facilitated a generation, two thirds of the population, who knows what a better life is like. That is why we will not give up. “They are strong, they believe in freedom and democracy.” Malala Yousafzai, who won the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize for her fight for the right of all children to education, told the Forum that times have changed since the Taliban first banned girls’ education in 1996. “It’s a lot harder this time – it’s because women have seen what it means to be educated, what it means to be empowered. This time it will be much harder for the Taliban to maintain the ban on girls’ education. They learn in the hideouts. They are protesting in the streets. This ban will not last forever. They waited outside the school gates in their uniforms and cried. “Seeking education is the duty of every Muslim,” he said. Dalia Fahmhy, an Afghan political science teacher, said in 1999 no girls went to high school. “In 15 years, there were 3.7 million girls. During this period, a thousand women became business owners. This can not be limited. We live in a digital age and 68% have cell phones and 22% are connected to each other and to the world. This can not be limited. “27% of the parliament were women.”
