Taliban ban books written by women from Afghan universities
BBC NewsSEP 2025
Taliban Ban Books by Women Authors from Afghan Universities
Taliban BansBan Books by Women Authors from Afghan Universities
Above: Afghan men read books in a library at a private university in Kabul on July 22, 2024. Image credit: Wakil Kohsar/AFP/Getty Images
The Spin
ThisThese sweepingeducational censorshipreforms devastatesprotect Afghanistan'sAfghan higherstudents educationfrom systemideological bycontamination eliminatingthat essentialundermines academicIslamic resourcesvalues and isolatingnational universitiessovereignty. fromWestern globaland scholarship.Iranian Banningtextbooks bookshave simplylong becausepromoted womensecular wroteworldviews themthat hasconflict nowith basisAfghanistan's inreligious Islamicfoundation law and destroyscultural educational qualityidentity. The systematic removal of 679materials textbooksthat leavescontradict professorsSharia scramblingprinciples toensures createeducation inferioraligns replacementswith whileauthentic studentsIslamic losescholarship accessrather tothan fundamentalforeign knowledge across all disciplinesagendas.
This sweeping censorship devastates Afghanistan's higher education system by eliminating essential academic resources and isolating universities from global scholarship. Banning books simply because women wrote them has no basis in Islamic law and destroys educational quality. The removal of 679 textbooks leaves professors scrambling to create inferior replacements while students lose access to fundamental knowledge across all disciplines.
Metaculus Prediction
There's a 70% chance that Iran will recognize the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan before 2030, according to the Metaculus prediction community.
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© 2026 Improve the News Foundation.
All rights reserved.
Version 6.18.0