Taliban’s Ideological War on Universities; From Mobile Phone Bans to Forced Turbans

Image source: khaama press

In the latest controversial decree, the Taliban’s Ministry of Higher Education has imposed more than fifty restrictive orders on professors and students of Afghanistan’s universities, directives that range from banning the use of smartphones to the obligation of wearing turbans. Informed sources warn that these decisions not only further suffocate the country’s academic environment but also practically turn universities into arenas for enforcing the Taliban’s Department for the Promotion of Virtue policies.

A copy of the official letters from Nida Mohammad Nadim, the Taliban’s Minister of Higher Education, obtained by the media, shows that all universities in the country are required to “purify their environments from images of living beings and everything deemed un-Islamic.” These letters also state that all university employees must wear turbans and administrators are obliged to encourage staff to comply with this order.

Ban on Smartphones

One of the most controversial aspects of these decrees is the prohibition on carrying and using smartphones in universities. According to the Taliban’s Ministry of Higher Education, no professor or student has the right to use a smartphone inside the university environment. This restriction has even been extended to lower-level ministry employees, who are required not to bring their phones to their workplaces.

Infiltration of the Department for the Promotion of Virtue into Academic Environments

In Article Four of these decrees, it is explicitly stated that the Taliban’s Department for the Promotion of Virtue will oversee all university affairs, an institution internationally recognized as one of the main instruments of human rights violations and restrictions on individual freedoms.

Continuous Restrictions on Education

In the past four years, Afghanistan’s educational system has been consistently under Taliban pressure:

• Complete ban on the education of girls and women

• Removal of certain scientific subjects

• Prohibition of teaching specific books

• Rewriting of curricula based on a rigid ideological interpretation

Experts believe that this series of decrees is the final nails in the coffin of the country’s scientific and academic independence, and professors and students are practically deprived of the most basic educational rights and individual freedoms.

A source in the Taliban’s Ministry of Higher Education, on the condition of anonymity, said: “These decrees tie the hands and feet of professors and students more than ever before and turn universities into a silent prison.”

Consequences

Analysts say that with these decrees, the Taliban have turned universities from centers of science and thought into testing grounds for their ideology, a decision that not only endangers the academic future of millions of young people but also drives Afghan society further toward darkness, isolation, and backwardness.