'The Taliban Advances: "If We Now Kill Schoolgirls, You Shouldn't Be Surprised"', Spiegel Online, 26 May 2009
EXCERPT: "When the deputy director of Aqtash High School talks of the government, he isn't referring to Hamid Karzai's central government in Kabul. Nor does he refer to the provincial administration in Kunduz. 'The Taliban are our government,' Bashir says. 'They have taken over our region, their commanders give the orders here.' Bashir is standing in a dusty classroom on the ground floor of his modern school, roughly half an hour from Kunduz by car. As recently as just one month ago, he says, some 400 girls were still coming to the school in three daily shifts to learn reading, writing and arithmetic. Figures and formula are still scrawled across the blackboard. But now, the girls' classrooms have been left to deteriorate. The desks and chairs are still laid out in neat rows, but a film of dust has collected, and Bashir stands helplessly in the middle of the room."
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See also:
'Battle for Afghanistan a fight for young minds', The Globe and Mail, 26 May 2009
'Afghanistan foe: Population surge', RAWA News, 25 May 2009
'Women's rights threatened in Iraq, Afghanistan', San Francisco Chronicle, 24 May 2009
'German army can't protect Afghan girls' schools', Spiegel Online, 18 May 2009
'Afghan private schools seen as sign of hope, optimism', Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, 9 May 2009
Related posts:
'Insecurity harming child health, education: UNICEF', 20 May 2009
'Afghan girls ill in third school poisoning', 12 May 2009
'Five million children not in school', 21 April 2009
'Afghan women, education, and opportunities', 24 October 2008
'An Afghan dilemma: Education, gender and globalization in an Islamic context', 5 November 2007
