Women demonstrated across various cities in Afghanistan after dozens of mostly young women were killed in an attack on a school last week.
Dressed in a long black abaya with her face mask secured, university professor Zahra Mosawi walked the streets of the ancient Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif to denounce incessant attacks on the Shia Muslim minority.
Mosawi, 28, carried with her a large yellow placard with the word “Azadi”—or freedom—scrawled across it as she joined more than 50 other colleagues and students in a demonstration on Monday against the recent attack on a learning center in Kabul that killed 53 students, mostly young women.
The protesters also demanded the reopening of girls’ high schools in Afghanistan, which have been closed since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan last year. “We raise our voices for justice and equality. We want the right to work, education, and the free life of women,” Mosawi said.
Similar demonstrations took place in Kabul, Herat, and Bamiyan over the weekend, largely led by women from Afghanistan’s academia.
The peaceful demonstrations were met with a Taliban backlash. Witnesses told Al Jazeera that security forces fired warning shots, and video on social media from Herat and Kabul showed them violently dispersing protesters.
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