Persecution Watch Weblog

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Taliban in Swat district OF North West Frontier Province (NWFP) have imposed a ban on female education and have warned teachers of ’severe consequences’ if any girl is seen heading for school after a 15-day deadline ends. According to the Daily Times of Dec. 25, “The announcement was made by a spokesman of radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah – who has waged an armed struggle to impose Taliban rule in the district – on a pirated FM radio frequency. “They have also banned women from visiting markets,” Muhammad Osman, a school teacher, said. “Taliban have established a parallel government in 90 percent of the district’s area and they execute everyone who opposes them,” he added.” The future of around 40,000 girls in Swat is at stake following a Taliban ban on education for female students. The Taliban have blown up more than 100 girls’ schools in Swat in the past 14 months. According to figures provided by a Swat-based NGO, Pakistan Coalitions for Education (PCE), Taliban have destroyed over 100 of the 490 primary schools for girls in Swat so far. [daily Times, Dec. 26, 2008]

There were around 500 private schools, mainly for co-education primary education. “Female education is against Islamic teachings and spreads vulgarity in society,”
Shah Dauran, leader of a group declared.

“Swat, once a relatively liberal area and a popular tourist destination, has in the past few years become a heartland for Islamic militancy, which fashions itself on
the conservative Taleban movement in Afghanistan. More than 200 government soldiers have been killed but the militants are still well entrenched in the area. Since the
start of the government offensive, girls’ schools have been targeted increasingly by Islamic fundamentalists. The district has 842 boys’ and 490 girls’ state schools
for 300,000 children aged 3 to 9; only 163,645 boys and 67,606 girls are actually enrolled at state and private establishments, according to official figures. According
to the local authorities, 50 per cent of girls have stopped attending school because of the militants’ threats. In the past two years another 100 schools have been burnt
down in Waziristan and other tribal areas, leaving tens of thousands of children between the ages of 5 and 15 with no access to education,” Zahid Hussain reported in ‘The
Times,’ London of Dec. 26.

This year alone, Taleban militants have destroyed more than 130 schools in the valley. Militant attacks on schools in the region have deprived more than 17,000
students of education, BBC says on Dec. 26.

Khurshid Khan writes in daily Dawn on Dec. 25, 2008, “The first school in Swat was established in 1922 by Miangul Abdul Wadood. Both boys and girls were educated here until the primary level. It was not until 1926 when a separate school was established for girls. His successor Miangul Jehanzeb established a network of schools and colleges in the whole of Swat, Buner, Shanglapar and Indus-Kohistan which were then a part of the Swat state. After
the merger of Swat state in 1969, several other schools and colleges in the public sector were opened, especially girls’ schools and colleges. Private schools also emerged.
But this evolution of education was strangulated by the militants in 2007 and 2008. Swat is now being pushed back to the pre-1922 period.” He further added, “It is
shocking and surprising that as schools and colleges in Swat are being leveled to the ground one after the other, the people do not protest and the government is averse
to taking serious action. Parliamentarians are also silent spectators. Their tongues are tied and their hands fastened.”

Swat, to all intents and purposes, has fallen to the Taliban. –the Taliban announcement merely puts the seal on what is a manifest reality – the government has lost the battle for Swat and the Taliban have won. They operate at will, go where they like, issue orders and proclamations that a terrified public are unable to ignore and broadcast their message of obscurantism on the radio for all to hear – and obey, according to daily The News’ editorial of Dec. 27.

Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Maulvi Mohammad Umer told media people on phone on Dec. 26 that they would not target schools but wanted girls to acquire education while observing veil. However, spokesman for Swat TTP, Muslim Khan, told The News on Dec. 28 that the decision was intact as central leadership or Shura of the TTP had not ordered withdrawal of the same.

Fear Of Faces: A militant organization in Quetta has distributed pamphlets warning women to cover their faces before going out in
public. It has also made threats to CD shops and other outlets that display posters of women. A bomb explosion at a Quetta marketplace was evidently intended by this
group, calling itself the Jamaatul Tauhid Wal Jihad Balochistan, to show that it meant business. As we have seen in neighboring Afghanistan and parts of NWFP, such outfits seem to fear the faces of women more than anything else. The horrible case involving the hurling of acid on schoolgirls in Afghanistan, disfiguring the faces of victims, shows how far they are capable of going.

There can be no doubt that such forces have nothing to do with religion. Indeed they represent the anti-thesis to anything that is good or moral. The reason
why they have grown in number over the years is linked directly to the failure of authorities to act against them. In Mansehra, in Peshawar – even in Lahore -
no measures have been taken to deal with elements involved in blackening the faces of women on billboards or meting out threats to them. In tribal areas and even
at the campuses of some educational institutions in settled parts of NWFP, schoolgirls, female students and women leaving their homes have been forced to do veils.
The messages to this effect have been reiterated through the illegal FM stations that continue to operate in many places. The fact they have not been stopped sends
out a distinct message. [Editorial, daily The News, Dec. 06, 2008]