Taliban blocked women not accompanied by men from flights: officials

Afghanistan's Taliban rulers refused to allow dozens of women to board several flights, including some overseas, because they were traveling without a male guardian, two Afghan airline officials said Saturday.

The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions from the Taliban, said dozens of women who arrived at Kabul's international airport Friday to board domestic and international flights were told they couldn't do so without a male guardian.

Some of the women were dual nationals returning to their homes overseas, including some from Canada, according to one of the officials. Women were denied boarding on flights to Islamabad, Dubai and Turkey on Kam Air and the state-owned Ariana Airline, said the officials.

The order came from the Taliban leadership, said one official.

By Saturday, some women traveling alone were given permission to board an Ariana Airlines flight to western Herat province, the official said. However, by the time the permission was granted they had missed their flight, he said.

The airport's president and police chief, both from the Taliban movement and both Islamic clerics, were meeting Saturday with airline officials.

"They are trying to solve it," the official said.

It was still unclear whether the Taliban would exempt air travel from an order issued months ago requiring women traveling more than 45 miles (72 kilometres) to be accompanied by a male relative.

This latest assault on women's rights in Taliban-run Afghanistan comes just days after the all-male religiously driven government broke its promise to allow girls to return to school after the sixth grade.

The move enraged the international community, which has been reluctant to recognize the Taliban-run government since the Taliban swept into power last August, fearing they would revert to their harsh rule of the 1990s.

The Taliban's refusal to open up education to all Afghan children also infuriated large swaths of the Afghan population. On Saturday, dozens of girls demonstrated in the Afghan capital demanding the right to go to school.

After the Taliban's ban on girls education beyond the sixth grade, women's rights activist Mahbouba Seraj went on Afghanistan's TOLO TV to ask: "How do we as a nation trust you with your words anymore? What should we do to please you? Should we all die?"

An Afghan charity called PenPath, which runs dozens of "secret" schools with thousands of volunteers, is planning to stage countrywide protests to demand the Taliban reverse its order, said Matiullah Wesa, PenPath founder.

On Saturday at the Doha Forum 2022 in Qatar, Roya Mahboob, an Afghan businesswoman who founded an all-girl robotics team in Afghanistan, was given the Forum Award for her work and commitment to girls education.

In an interview after receiving the award, Mahboob called on the many global leaders and policy makers attending the forum to press the Taliban to open schools for all Afghan children.

The robotics team fled Afghanistan when the Taliban returned to power but Mahboob said she still hoped a science and technology center she had hoped to build in Afghanistan for girls could still be constructed.

"I hope that the international community, the Muslim communities (have not) forgotten about Afghanistan and (will) not abandon us," she said.

"Afghanistan is a poor country. It doesn’t have enough resources. And if you take (away) our knowledge, I don’t know what’s going to happen".