Taliban Against Sciences And Intellectual Freedom

With the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban the countries situation deteriorates day after day.

Among those deteriorations are:

-banning Afghan women and girls from work and education

-banning books (see below)

-banning contraceptive pills (see below)

-interfering in people's private lives by conducting house searches of random Afghan civilians

-kidnapping young women

-systematic discrimination against Shia Afghans

etc.

Banning of books by Taliban

The Taliban has imposed severe restrictions on Shia Afghans since their takeover of Afghanistan. Shia Muslims make up 15 percent of Afghanistan's population and are the second-largest Islamic sect after Sunnis. On December 22, 2023, Mir Zafaruddin Ansari, a lecturer at one of the private universities, confirmed that the ministry's guidance department had sent a letter to all the private universities in which they urged them to remove all books that "oppose the Hanafi jurisprudence or can foment opposition to its tenets." The Taliban has ordered libraries "to remove books belonging to the Shi'ite sect„“.

They also banned political books, among which are: “Pakistan’s Role in the Bloody Tragedy of Afghanistan,” “The Taliban Project in Afghanistan,” and “Pashtun of Arab Origin from the Generation of Shia Imams”. Mujeeb Rahman Rahimi, a famous Afghan author, now living abroad, said, “The Taliban’s recent censorship is a direct attack on intellectual freedom. My works are among those confiscated.”

 

Video on Banning books:

Taliban's strict restriction of contraceptive pills in Afghanistan

Vanity Fair reported that restricting the sale of birth control pills in Afghanistan reduces women's access to health care. This French media wrote that the Taliban has not officially banned the use of contraceptives, but they prevent pharmacies from selling them through intimidation and threats.

 

According to the report, this indirect ban has led to an increase in unsafe abortions. An employee of a pharmacy in Mazar-e-Sharif told Vanity Fair that Taliban agents told him that he should stop selling contraceptive pills. He said: "When the Taliban recommend something, it is actually like a sentence. After this advice from the Taliban, I sold all the pills in the black market."

 

The report states that with the imposition of these restrictions, the demand for birth control pills in the black market and its price has increased sharply. It states that the Taliban's imposition of more restrictions on women, including access to reproductive health services, exposes them to the risk of using low-quality and counterfeit products.

 

As the demand for birth control pills increases, the market for drug traffickers in Pakistan is heating up. Vanity Fair wrote that children are now smuggling these drugs from Pakistan to Afghanistan. A pill smuggler told Vanity Fair that demand for birth control pills has increased due to restrictions imposed by the Taliban, which has led to drug shortages and higher prices.

Sources (banning of books by Taliban):

Taliban Bans Books From Minority Muslim Sects In Private University Libraries. Article from December 22, 2023. Retrieved on May 11, 2024.

Taliban confiscates books in Kabul, targeting religious and political works. Article from January 18, 2024. Retrieved on May 11, 2024.

Source (restriction of contraceptive pills by Taliban):

En Afghanistan, pilule sans lendemain. Article from May 08, 2024. Retrieved on May 11, 2024.