The Taliban Arrest a Female Doctor in Herat

Image: Quddus khatibi/Facebook

Local sources in Herat say that the Taliban have arrested a female doctor in the province and released her several hours later.

According to the sources, Taliban agents from the Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice arrested Dr Shabnam Fazli, a general surgeon, on Monday morning (November 10) at the gate of Herat Regional Hospital.

Qudus Khatibi, Dr Fazli’s husband, confirmed that she was released a few hours after her arrest.

It has been said that her arrest was linked to the Taliban’s recent directive, which bans women without burqas from entering government institutions, including hospitals and schools.

In response to this decision, several women protesters in Kabul and Herat burned burqas in a symbolic act, calling it “a tool of oppression and the exclusion of women from society.”

Women’s rights activists say that with this decision, the Taliban have taken another step towards “gender apartheid”; a process that began with the exclusion of women from education and employment and has now reached their complete removal from public life.