Human Rights Activists: Afghan Universities Under Taliban Rule Have Become Sites of Repression

On the occasion of International Students’ Day, the Human Rights Activists Union issued a statement declaring that being a student in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan has effectively become a crime, and institutions of higher education have lost their standing.

In a statement released on Sunday, November 15, the human rights group warned that the Taliban administration’s actions—such as banning girls from education, closing university doors, limiting academic disciplines, and purging independent professors—represent one of the most unprecedented assaults on the right to education in Afghanistan’s modern history.

The statement describes the systematic exclusion of women from education, the destruction of academic structures, and the ideological pressure on educational institutions as a form of cultural genocide, gender apartheid, and a blatant violation of fundamental human rights.

The union emphasized that these actions are dismantling the identity, language, culture, and future of Afghanistan’s youth, aiming to suppress the intellectual awareness and potential of an entire nation.

The organization has called on the international community to recognize the Taliban’s actions against students as a clear case of cultural genocide and to pave the way for those responsible to be prosecuted in international courts.