“Banning education of girls in Afghanistan is ‘Gender apartheid’; US, UK should impose sanction…”: former UK PM

Kabul [Afghanistan]: Former United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown called the treatment of Afghan women and girls “gender apartheid” and urged the American government and the UK government to impose sanctions on the Taliban, people directly responsible for such policies, TOLO News reported.

He criticized the restriction on Afghan women and called it a flagrant abuse of human rights and “systematic.

Following the continuous restrictions on Afghan women, the former United Kingdom Prime Minister Gordon Brown criticized the restriction on Afghan women and called it a flagrant abuse of human rights and “systematic,” TOLO reported.

Commenting on the current situation in Afghanistan, Brown said, “Everybody I think who studies knows that there is nothing in Islam that says that girls’ education should be banned … and it’s gender persecution and gender apartheid.”

Brown, on CNN, urged the International Criminal Court to look specifically at the violation of the girls and women’s rights in Afghanistan. He further said that the American government and the UK government must impose sanctions on the people, directly responsible for such policies, TOLO News reported.

“I am proposing that the international criminal court look specifically at the violation of the rights of girls and women in Afghanistan, and I believe that governments like the American government and the UK government must impose sanctions on those people who are directly responsible for this policy,” Gordon Brown added.

However, the Taliban replied to Gordon Brown’s statements and said that the British have committed the most human rights violations in Afghanistan, reported TOLO News.

The spokesman of the Taliban denied the claims of human rights violations, especially women’s rights in the country and further highlighted that the rights of women in the nation are secured based on Islamic Sharia, according to TOLO News.

Zabiullah Mujahid, a spokesman for the Taliban said, “It is not fair for them to criticize us for violating human rights, because they killed people in Afghanistan for twenty years, bombed us for twenty years, used explosives here, made people martyrs, and destroyed their families. It is a violation of human rights, and they must answer.”

More than 80 per cent of the female journalists in Afghanistan have been forced to leave their work since the Taliban takeover, Khaama Press reported citing a report by Reporters Without Borders (RSF).

RSF, in their report titled ‘2 Years of Journalism under the Taliban Regime’, has revealed that over 80 per cent of Afghanistan’s female journalists have been forced to halt their work since the ominous date of August 15, 2021.

According to the report, of the roughly 12,000 male and female journalists that Afghanistan had in 2021, “more than two-thirds have abandoned the profession, and the media have been decimated in the past two years.”

Human Rights Watch (HRW) has criticised the imposition of restrictions on Afghan women, Afghanistan-based Tolo News reported. In the report, HRW said that Afghan women have been denied the right to education, employment, and social involvement since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan.

The report released by HRW reads, “Over the past two years, Taliban authorities have denied women and girls their rights to education, work, movement, and assembly.”