Jan. 1 (EUROPA PRESS) –
The acting head of the United Nations mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), Markus Potzel, met this Sunday with the Taliban Deputy Prime Minister, Abdul Salam Hanafi, to discuss the latest vetoes of the fundamentalist movement against female university education and the presence of women in NGOs.
“These vetoes are causing harm to millions of people in Afghanistan and are preventing critical aid from reaching the men, women and children of the country,” UNAMA lamented in a message posted on its Twitter account during the meeting.
The decision on NGOs was announced on Saturday last week by the Afghan Ministry of Economy and affects all national and international non-governmental organizations. Thus, despite the fact that it does not directly affect the UN, it makes many of its aid programs impossible, since they are carried out by the organizations affected by the measure.
The announcement also came just a few days after the Taliban barred access to university education for women, which sparked criticism from the international community, including much of the Islamic world. The Taliban announced a day before the opening of an internal debate to discuss these criticisms received.
Precisely this same Sunday, the Deputy Minister of Information and main Taliban spokesman, Zabibulá Mujahid, has defended the vetoes and recognized that “it is normal that there are people who are going to suffer for it” before asking those affected to think of alternative solutions, according to has declared to the British channel BBC.
“It is clear that every time a reform based on sharia (Islamic law) is put into practice there are people who are going to suffer, but they should think about alternative options. It is not that everyone is going to suffer for it,” he explained. .
The spokesman has defended that “earning a living is important but it should happen under certain conditions” and that “Muslim brothers and sisters have the right to work but within a certain legitimacy” based on fundamentalist doctrines.
