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Afghan Man Killed by Taliban for Teaching Girls

Armed men reportedly shot and killed a male secondary school teacher in Afghanistan for teaching girls. Reuters reports that the man, identified by the name Laghmani, was dragged from his classroom and executed at the school gates. “He had received many warning letters from the Taliban to stop teaching, but he continued to do so happily and honestly—he liked to teach boys and girls,” Abdul Rahman Sabir, police chief in the Helmund province, told Reuters.

In a separate attack presumed to be carried out by the Taliban, gunmen shot and killed an 18-year-old male student and a guard at another secondary school in the Helmund province, according to Reuters. The gunmen opened fire on teachers at the school and demanded that the schools be shut down or they would be killed, Reuters reports.

The Taliban had banned all education of girls from kindergarten on up. Now Taliban supporters and militias, since the fall of the Taliban, have destroyed over 40 girls’ schools. “The Feminist Majority has been urging an expansion of international peacekeeping troops since the fall of the Taliban,” said Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority. “The Bush administration speaks of democracy in Afghanistan, women’s rights, and a Marshall Plan, but the US has simply not been delivering.”

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Sources:

Reuters 12/17/05, 12/16/05

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