Pakistan Taliban ban on schoolgirls could affect thousands

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, (AFP)

Tens of thousands of students in Pakistan’s troubled northwestern Swat valley are facing a year without classes after the local Taliban banned girls from schools, officials said Friday.

Last month, a local Taliban commander threatened to kill any girls attending classes after January 15, and to blow up any schools where girls are enrolled.

As a result, about 400 private schools are unlikely to open their doors next month after winter holidays, leaving tens of thousands of students with no educational options, the officials said.

“We have informed the authorities that the Taliban threats have put the future of our students in jeopardy. Tens of thousands will be deprived of education,” education ministry official Sher Afzal told AFP.

He said up to 50,000 students could be affected.Ziauddin Yusufzai, spokesman for an association of private school owners in Swat, said the resumption of classes was in doubt.

“They were due to reopen in early February, but after the Taliban warning, it seems impossible now for us to resume classes,” Yusufzai told AFP.

“The government has assured us it will provide security but it is a question of the lives of the students and we cannot take a risk,” he said.The scenic valley of snow-capped mountains, once a popular tourist resort, has been rocked by a violent campaign for Islamic Sharia law being waged by radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah, who has links to Pakistan’s Taliban movement.

His followers have blown up 168 schools, including 104 for girls, since security forces launched an operation against militants in the region in 2007, Afzal said.“We will need millions of dollars to rebuild these schools,” the official said.The valley has more than 600 state-run schools, in addition to the 400 private schools.

Information Minister Sherry Rehman said the government would not tolerate violence against women, telling AFP: “We will continue our fight against terrorism.”

Yusufzai said winter holidays could be extended until March as a stop-gap solution, in the hopes that the security situation will improve.

Fazlullah’s spokesman Haji Muslim Khan said the burning of schools in Swat was the Taliban’s direct response to Pakistani military operations.“We attack and destroy government property when the security forces bomb and burn our houses,” he said in a recent statement.Fazlullah and his commanders have said in messages broadcast on their illegal radio station that Pakistan’s British-inspired education system does not conform to Islamic norms.

Pakistan’s umbrella Taliban organisation in a statement Friday distanced itself from the threat from the local commander, saying it was not against the education of boys or girls.“We do not agree with the ban on education in Swat,” Maulvi Omar, a spokesman for Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan, said in a statement.

“We are in contact with Maulana Fazlullah and we hope an announcement to withdraw the decision will be made soon on his FM radio.”