Taliban officials have arrested an Afghan educator who has been campaigning for the education rights of girls in the country, his family members have confirmed.
Wazir Khan, 25, was arrested from his residence in the Kabul area on 24 February, his family has said. The arrest was carried out by four of the Taliban’s local officials who took him to their intelligence facility General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI).
He was picked up from his house in Butkhak in Kabul, taken out by the Taliban officials who tied his hands and blindfolded his eyes, his brother Amir Khan Zaland told The Independent.
“We have no idea where he is right now and how he is. It has been more than seven days since he was picked up,” he said.
“Wazir Khan worked for human rights, was an activist for children’s education, why was he arrested? What sin did he commit? Instead of being praised, he is being imprisoned in Afghanistan,” his brother told The Independent.
“As of Monday, more than a week after his arrest, we have no idea about Mr Khan’s whereabouts and his safety. It is believed he is in the Taliban’s detention facility,” said Samantha Leaning, a human rights advocate working closely with Mr Khan for nearly two years.
Mr Khan was running Today Child, a non-profit organisation for raising awareness of education for girls since 2022, which he said was his tool for supporting education in the rural areas of Afghanistan and wiping out illiteracy in the country.
“The Taliban has a red line with activism on girls education inside Afghanistan but Mr Khan was campaigning for both – girls and boys education – and that too for the age under 12 years, which the Taliban allows under its Sharia law,” Ms Leaning told The Independent, stating that he was “worried about his security”, in a likely sign he was already under threat from the Taliban.
She added that the young Afghan educator has been using the “let Afghan girls learn” hashtag in his social media which probably “tipped it” with the Taliban.
Several social media photos and videos of Mr Khan show him reaching the hinterlands of Afghanistan where he campaigned among the rural elders and tribal leaders to continue educating their children.
Mr Khan is also seen distributing storybooks and notebooks and narrating stories to groups of Afghan children during his regular outreach activities.
The Taliban have not released any official statement confirming the arrest of Mr Khan.
However, this is not the first such arrest of Afghan educators campaigning inside the hardline Islamist regime for education of girls and women.
The Taliban has banned the education of girls and women above sixth grade for more than three years now inside the country, leading to a widespread shutdown of education for millions of girls and women.
In March 2023, the Taliban arrested a prominent Afghan educator Matiullah Wesa from Kabul after he spent months travelling to remote parts of the country with his mobile library.
He was severely assaulted and tortured in his prison detention at the GDI facility and was released only after 215 days in prison.
Mr Wesa was seen as outspoken in his demands for girls to have the right to go to school and repeatedly called on the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan to reverse its bans on female education.
After his release from the detention, Mr Wesa has maintained a low profile in public and abstained from actively campaigning for Afghan girls’ right to education.
