(Washington) Taliban-appointed Interior Minister Sirajuddin Haqqani on Monday promised “very good news” for “very soon” about a return of girls to secondary schools in Afghanistan, in a rare interview with the American channel CNN International.
Posted at 3:10 p.m.
At the end of March, the Taliban, in power since the withdrawal of American forces in August, closed high schools and colleges for girls, just hours after their reopening, which had been announced for a long time.
This unexpected reversal, ordered by the supreme leader of the movement and the country, Hibatullah Akhundzada, outraged the international community.
“I would like to make a clarification. No one opposes education for women,” said Sirajuddin Haqqani, long one of the most secretive Taliban leaders, who only showed his face in public for the first time in March.
He argued that girls could already go to class in primary school. “Beyond these levels, work continues on a mechanism” to reopen secondary schools, he added in his first-ever television interview.
“Very soon, you are going to hear very good news about this,” he assured CNN International star reporter Christiane Amanpour.
Sirajuddin Haqqani suggested that this “mechanism” was linked to the dress required for future students, explaining that education should be based on Afghan “culture” and “Islamic rules and principles”, and referring “more broadly » the issue of wearing the hijab.
The Taliban demanded after their return to power that women wear at least a hijab, a scarf covering the head but revealing the face. But since the beginning of May, they have imposed on them the wearing in public of a full veil, preferably the burqa, already compulsory during their first passage to power between 1996 and 2001.
“Someone who entrusts his daughters or his sisters does so on the basis of complete trust. We must create the conditions to guarantee their honor and their safety. We are taking steps to that end,” he said.
The Haqqani network is accused of carrying out some of the most violent attacks perpetrated by the Taliban in Afghanistan in the past 20 years. Sirajuddin Haqqani himself is still on the FBI’s most wanted suspects list, which has promised up to $10 million for any information that could lead to his arrest.