A outstanding human rights activist recognized for combating for women’ training in Afghanistan was arrested in Kabul, United Nations officers mentioned Tuesday.
Matiullah Wesa is the founder and president of Pen Path, a volunteer-run group that works to open libraries and reopen closed colleges in rural Afghanistan.
Wesa was detained by Taliban safety forces after getting back from a visit to Europe, native media mentioned.
One in every of his brothers, Attaullah Wesa, mentioned Taliban forces surrounded their household’s residence, insulted their mom, beat up his two different brothers and confiscated Matiullah Wesa’s cellphone.
The U.N. Help Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) confirmed Wesa’s arrest in a tweet early Tuesday morning, calling on “authorities to clarify his whereabouts, the explanations for his arrest and to make sure his entry to authorized illustration and speak to with household.”
Earlier this month, the top of UNAMA, Roza Otunbayeva, mentioned in an announcement marking Worldwide Girls’s Day that “Afghanistan underneath the Taliban stays probably the most repressive nation on the earth relating to ladies’s rights.”
For the reason that Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in the summertime of 2021, UNAMA officers have recorded “an virtually fixed stream of discriminatory edicts and measures towards ladies.”
Women’ secondary training was suspended in September 2021. That suspension was prolonged indefinitely in March 2022.
Final December, Taliban authorities additionally suspended university education for ladies.
“It has been distressing to witness their methodical, deliberate, and systematic efforts to push Afghan ladies and ladies out of the general public sphere,” Otunbayeva added.
Wesa has been an outspoken advocate for women’ training rights. In his most up-to-date social media posts, he shared movies and images of Pen Path volunteers holding indicators that learn “Let ladies be taught” and “Please reopen ladies’ colleges.”
“Now we have been volunteering for 14 years to achieve folks and convey the message for girls education,” he tweeted on Friday, simply days earlier than this arrest. “Through the previous 18 months we campaigned home to deal with as a way to remove illiteracy and to finish all our miseries.”
Richard Bennett, U.N. particular rapporteur for human rights in Afghanistan, mentioned on Twitter he was “alarmed” by the arrest.
“His security is paramount & all his authorized rights have to be revered,” he wrote.
With Information Wire Companies