Qatar terms Taliban’s decisions on girl education ‘very disappointing’

Doha: Qatar has termed the Taliban’s decisions on girls’ education in Afghanistan “very disappointing” and a step backwards and called on the group’s leadership to look to Doha for how to run an Islamic system.

Taliban, which came into power in August, have imposed several restrictions on women including refusal to allow them to resume their studies, Al Jazeera reported.

The remarks were made by Qatar’s top diplomat Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani at a news conference on Thursday with European Union Foreign Policy Chief Josep Borrell in Doha.

“The recent actions that we have seen unfortunately in Afghanistan, it has been very disappointing to see some steps being taken backwards,” he said.

“We need to keep engaging them and urging them not to take such actions, and we have also been trying to demonstrate for the Taliban how Muslim countries can conduct their laws, how they can deal with the women’s issues,” said Sheikh Mohammed.

“One of the examples is the State of Qatar, which is a Muslim country; our system is an Islamic system [but] we have women outnumbering men in workforces, in government and in higher education.”

 The Taliban has been accused of human rights abuses in recent weeks, including publicly stringing up the bodies of four alleged kidnappers from cranes in Herat last week.

 The display of the dead kidnapping suspects, who were killed in a shootout, was the most high-profile public punishment since the Taliban swept to power last month.