Several university students say they are concerned about the growing pressure from the Taliban’s Morality Police and from the Taliban’s Committees for Dawah and Guidance and for Monitoring the Implementation of Decrees and Edicts. They say three Taliban bodies are simultaneously monitoring the appearance and clothing of students and lecturers. According to them, the continuation of this situation has turned universities from academic environments into Taliban jihadist madrasas. These students also say that teaching hours for the Islamic Culture subject have increased compared with the past, and that much of its content consists of the Taliban’s Law for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice and Islamic beliefs based on Hanafi jurisprudence.
Several students at various universities say they are fed up with the strict rules and severe Taliban pressure on clothing, appearance, and the way education is delivered at these institutions. They say that if this continues, universities will become centers for the Taliban’s ideological recruitment. They say the presence of the Committees for Dawah and Guidance, the officials monitoring the implementation of decrees and edicts, and the Morality Police at educational institutions, along with their supervision of lecturers and students, has severely damaged these institutions.
The students add that even their immunity and human dignity are being called into question. According to them, whenever a student does not behave as the Morality Police and Taliban fighters wish, or they dislike the student’s appearance, they humiliate and insult the student in various ways. The students stress that this situation has discouraged many students and even forced some to leave university.
Ahmad (pseudonym), a student at Kabul Polytechnic University, says: “We used to study two Islamic Culture subjects, but now we study four. The Taliban’s Ministry of Higher Education (MoHE) issued this order. Previously we studied only the Islamic political system and the Islamic administrative system, but now the topics of law and beliefs have also been added. In the law section, the Law for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice is taught, and in the beliefs section, only the Hanafi school is discussed, and nothing else.”
This student says the Taliban’s Morality Police also enter classrooms from time to time without prior notice during official class hours, stop the lesson, and talk about students’ beards, hair, and clothing.
Ahmad adds: “Their monitoring measures are also severe on the university grounds. If a student does not have a cap, they take his ID card, and if he does not have an ID card, they take his mobile phone. Then they tell him to go to the university administration and give a pledge that from now on he will not walk around without a cap.” According to him, in addition to the Taliban’s Morality Police, members of Akhundzada’s Committees for Dawah and Guidance and for Monitoring the Implementation of Decrees and Edicts also inspect and continuously monitor students and lecturers. They enter classrooms and also inspect students on the university grounds for their beards, hair, and clothing.
Sadis (pseudonym), another student who is worried about Taliban pressure at universities, says that if this situation continues, universities will become even worse than they are now and will turn completely into Taliban jihadist and ideological centers. According to him, the current treatment of students and lecturers has also undermined academic freedom in research and in the teaching of specialized fields. He says lecturers are also in despair over the current situation, and most of them, in order to cover their living costs, have been forced to resort to self-censorship, endure these conditions, and remain silent.
This student adds: “You see how fast artificial intelligence is advancing in the world and what is happening in universities around the globe, but we sit for hours under the lectures of the Taliban’s Morality Police and talk about matters we have known since childhood. Every Muslim knows how to perform ablution and say their prayers. We are truly fed up with the current situation. If I want to sum up what I have to say, I can say that the universities in Afghanistan have been wrapped up, and with the continuation of such pressure from the Taliban, these places will no longer be of any use to science.”
Shams (pseudonym), a student at Takhar University, says students at the university and in the dormitories are fed up with the treatment and behavior of the Morality Police and members of the Taliban’s Committee for Dawah and Guidance. According to him, because of the prevailing situation, students find no peace during the day at the university or at night in the dormitories, and many of them have lost motivation to continue their studies.
This student says: “Mawlawi Mufakkir, the Taliban’s head of Dawah and Guidance, knocks on the doors of students’ rooms almost every night and harasses them. The dormitory is a place for rest, study, and learning, but it has now turned into a place of fear, pressure, and harassment.”
Previously, too, students and lecturers had voiced concern about insulting treatment, the Taliban’s continuous monitoring of their appearance and clothing, and the increase in this group’s ideological courses. According to them, instead of providing grounds for research and strengthening critical thinking, universities under Taliban control have become environments in which “obedience” to the group’s Morality Police overshadows academic activity.
This comes as the findings of an earlier report by the Hasht-e Subh Daily showed that the Taliban’s final committee of clerics, tasked with preparing the curriculum of Kabul University, had removed 96 titles of books and course booklets from the educational programs of the university’s various faculties. A copy of this list, which had been obtained by the Hasht-e Subh Daily, showed that this extensive removal mainly targeted the humanities faculties, especially the faculties of social sciences, law and political science, and fine arts.
Subjects dealing with Western philosophy and theories, modern social sciences, political and media analysis, social criticism, cinematic and artistic sources, English-language books, and foreign academic resources had been removed from the curriculum. At the same time, the Taliban had approved 194 book titles on the condition that they be revised and reviewed.
You can read the Persian version of this report here:
نظارت بر چهره، محدودیت بر اندیشه؛ طالبان چگونه دانشگاهها را از رسالت علمی دور میسازند؟
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