On Tuesday, Afghanistan's Taliban rulers prohibited university education for women nationwide as the hardline Islamists continue to destroy their right to education and freedom. Despite vowing a softer rule when they seized control last year, the Taliban have phased off restrictions on all facets of women's lives, ignoring international outrage.

"You all are informed to instantly execute the mentioned order of suspending the education of women until further notice," said a letter allocated to all government and private universities, signed by Neda Mohammad Nadeem, Minister for Higher Education.

The spokesperson for the ministry, Ziaullah Hashimi, who tweeted the letter, approved the order in a text message. Washington criticized the decision "in the strongest terms."

Antony Blinken, Secretary of State, said in a statement that the Taliban can't expect to be a legitimate associate of the international community until they respect the rights of all in Afghanistan. This judgment will come with consequences for the Taliban authority.

The prohibition on higher education comes less than three months after thousands of women appeared for university entrance exams across the nation, with many desiring to choose teaching and medicine as future careers. The universities are on winter vacation and are due to reopen in March. After the Taliban took over the authority, universities were forced to execute new rules, including gender-restricted classrooms and entrances where women were only allowed to be taught by women professors or aged men.

Most teen girls across the nation have already been prohibited from secondary school education, hardly limiting university intake. An 18-year-old in Kabul said I have nothing to say. She added not only me, but all my friends have no words to describe our feelings. "Everyone is thinking about the unknown fate ahead of them. They buried our dreams and desires." Medicine student Rhea in the capital, who asked that her name be changed, said the country was returning to dark days.

A 26-year-old said when we were expecting to make progress, they are removing us from society.

UN chief's deputy special representative for Afghanistan, Ramiz Alakbarov, said the United Nations is "deeply concerned" by the order. He tweeted that education is a fundamental human right. A door locked to women's education is a door closed to the future of Afghanistan.

The Taliban sticks to an austere version of Islam, with the movement's supreme authority Hibatullah Akhundzada and his internal circle of Afghan clerics against modern education, specifically for girls and women. But they are at odds with numerous Kabul officials and among their rank and file, who hoped girls would be authorized to continue learning following the takeover.

A Taliban commander based in northwest Pakistan said there are severe differences in the Taliban ranks on girls' education, and the latest decision will raise these disparities. In a vicious U-turn, in March, the Taliban authorities stopped girls from returning to secondary schools on the morning they were supposed to reopen.

Several Taliban administrators say the secondary education prohibition is only temporary but have also given excuses for the closure -- from a shortage of funds to the time required to remodel the syllabus along Islamic lines. Since the prohibition, many teen girls have been married off early -- usually too much older men of their father's preference.

News Source: The Hindu