Fears are growing of the Taliban’s moves to expand extremist religious schools in Afghanistan, with more buildings allegedly being claimed for this purpose.
In the latest move, residents of a girls’ hostel linked to Herat University have been forced by Taliban authorities to immediately vacate the building.
Local sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, say the Taliban administration wants to turn the premises into a religious school. While another source told Rukhshana Media that an employee of the hostel said the eviction was due to the residents’ lack of proper hijab.
Hostel resident Haseeba* told Rukhshana Media the residents were ordered to vacate on Sunday by members of the Taliban’s Vice and Virtue department in Herat province.
“The hostel is closed. We have just left it,” Haseeba said in a recorded audio message. “We packed our belongings, but the Vice and Virtue guys did not allow us to take them out of the hostel.”
In the message, she added that there were about ten Vice and Virtue employees in the hostel telling residents that if they want to pick up their belongings, they were to apply to collect them through Herat University.
An official reason for the eviction has not been given.
Most of the residents living in the girls’ hostel were from other provinces all over Afghanistan studying at Herat University. After the Taliban banned university education for girls in December 2022, many returned home but their belongings were kept at the hostel in the hope that the ban would be lifted and they would return.
Since taking power in Afghanistan over two years ago, the Taliban have been slowly building more religious schools across the country.
The Taliban’s acting Minister of Education Mawlawi Noorullah Munir said in a speech in Logar province on April 24 that “huge jihadi schools” will be established in each province and three to ten religious elementary schools in each district.
Two buildings of the Herat teacher training center were turned into jihadist schools in April. Before the Taliban takeover in August 2021, more than four thousand men and women had been studying teaching in the center.