Taliban ban dozens of books written by women from Afghan universities

The Taliban administration has banned 140 books written by women from being taught in Afghan universities in a set of new education guidelines issued in late August, according to reports.

Among the 679 banned textbooks, 310 were drafted by Iranian authors or publishers.

In a letter addressed to Afghan universities, the deputy academic director of the Ministry of Higher Education, Ziaur Rahman Aryoubi, stated that a panel of "religious scholars and experts" had found that the banned books violated the Taliban interpretation of Sharia laws.

According to Aryoubi, the works were assessed for their “ideological, cultural, religious and scientific” content.

Speaking to the BBC, a member of the book panel said that the ban on books written by Iranians or published in Iran was part of a bid to "prevent the infiltration of Iranian content" into the Afghan curriculum.

The letter also instructed universities to ban 18 university courses which went against religious laws, adding that a further 201 "problematic" university courses remained under review.

Since returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban government has imposed a stranglehold on women’s lives, notably through so-called morality laws, which forbid them from showing their faces outside the home.

On Wednesday, global rights organisations mourned the four-year anniversary of the administration's ban on women's access to secondary education, which was instated after the Taliban seized Afghanistan, as NATO and US forces withdrew at the end of a two-decade war.

Despite a harsh crackdown on human rights, the Taliban administration has sought to gain international recognition while enforcing its interpretation of Islamic law.

In July, Russia became the first country in the world to grant the Taliban government formal recognition.