Sources among students and teachers at boys’ schools in Mazar-e Sharif say school administrators have warned students that attendance at the 24 Asad ceremony marking the fifth anniversary of the Taliban administration’s return is mandatory. According to these sources, students were told they would be punished if they did not take part in the event.<\/p>\n
According to the sources, Taliban officials in Balkh province instructed school administrators to bring students into the streets of Mazar-e Sharif carrying white flags. School administrators conveyed the order to students today, Wednesday, 21 Asad.<\/p>\n
Some students said they were informed that taking part in the pro-government march would bring an incentive mark, while absence would be recorded as 10 days of truancy. They said the decision amounts to direct pressure on students to attend an event that is supportive of the Taliban administration.<\/p>\n
The sources added that teachers are also not exempt from this pressure. According to students, teachers have been warned that if they do not take part in the march, six days of absence will be recorded against them.<\/p>\n
The Taliban administration is set to mark the fifth anniversary of its return to power in Afghanistan on Saturday next week, 24 Asad. The administration has also declared Saturday a public holiday.<\/p>\n
Mazar-e Sharif is the capital of Balkh province in northern Afghanistan and is one of the country’s major cities. In Afghanistan’s political calendar, 24 Asad is tied to the fall of Kabul to the Taliban administration and the group’s return to power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Students and teachers in Mazar-e Sharif face pressure to attend a Taliban ceremony marking five years since the group’s return.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":19571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17,8,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-important-news","category-social-affairs","category-top-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/atlaspress.news\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}