Calls mounted Wednesday for the Taliban to free a girls’ education activist arrested earlier this week in Kabul, as a minister in the Taliban-led government defended the detention.
Matiullah Wesa, founder and president of Pen Path—a local nongovernmental group that travels across Afghanistan with a mobile school and library—was arrested in the Afghan capital on Monday. Since their takeover of Afghanistan, the Taliban have imposed restrictions on women’s and minority rights. Girls are barred from school beyond the sixth grade and, last year, the Taliban banned women from going to universities. Wesa has been outspoken in his demands for girls to have the right to go to school and learn, and has repeatedly called on the Taliban-led government to reverse its bans.
Late Tuesday, the US chargé d’affaires for Afghanistan, Karen Decker, said she was disturbed by “multiple, disturbing reports” of Afghans being detained while peacefully protesting in support of their aspirations. Social media activists have created a hashtag to campaign for Matiullah Wesa’s release. Many posts condemned his detention and demanded immediate freedom for the activist.
Read more here.
