Afghan president says torching schools un-Islamic

Mar 23, 2011, 10:33 GMT

Kabul - President Hamid Karzai called on the Taliban Wednesday not to set fire to schools in Afghanistan, saying it was the work of enemies of Islam and the country.

'This is not bravery. It is cowardice,' Karzai said at a high school. 'Don't leave your children uneducated.'

If the insurgents really want foreigners out of the country, they should let Afghan children be educated, he argued.

'Don't make your child poor and compel them to work for foreigners,' the president told students, teachers and officials. 'Let Afghan children stand on their own feet.'

'If you torch schools, then it means that you are comrades of foreigners who trained you to torch schools so that they can stay here,' Karzai said, referring to foreign fighters linked to al-Qaeda and other non-Afghan terrorist groups.

Karzai spoke as the new academic year began after the Afghan New Year started March 21.

About 8.3 million students, of which 39 per cent are girls, are enrolled at 14,000 schools and educational institutions, Education Minister Farouq Wardak said.

But he said more than 4.5 million children of school age remained deprived of education and illiteracy is still widespread.

The Taliban have been behind numerous attacks on schools and educational personnel since their ouster in late 2001. They have also threatened students and teachers for attending school, which, they said, teach un-Islamic subjects.

Last year, 450 schools were closed because of security problems in Afghanistan, according to the minister.

Wardak said that earlier this year, the Taliban decided to scrap its ban on female education and called it a profound change in attitude, behaviour and culture.

However, schools and teachers continued to be a targeted by insurgent attacks. Last week, a bomb exploded in a coeducational school in the eastern city of Jalalabad, killing the principal and injuring two teachers. In February, suspected Taliban fighters torched a school in the southern province of Helmand.

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