In the Islamic marriage contract ceremonies, it is assumed that the girl’s silence is a sign of acceptance. The silence of commentators and those interested in public affairs, preachers and politicians on a significant matter, and their failure to address or comment on a disaster means their indifference to it, or their tacit acceptance of the matter.

Afghanistan has a long history of gender inequality. Women and girls there face great obstacles with regard to education and other basic rights, including the inability to travel or work, and the last Taliban “laws” were to keep women at home and prevent them from receiving education, and this decision will have a devastating impact on their progress, as the percentage of educated women in Afghanistan does not exceed 12 per cent , and this percentage is slipping.

The regime also practices all kinds of violence against women, forcing them to wear the Afghan women’s robe that covers her completely, and she does not see life, outside her house, except through a few holes in her head cover. The few young girls who go to school are subjected to constant harassment and discrimination, and this prompted their parents to prevent them from going to school.

Because of the importance of education for any human being in this very complex era, individuals with a great deal of courage resorted to providing Afghan girls’ education in secret, and revealing this is a crime, however it seems that it is worth some of the risks and creativity in finding ways to gather girls and teach them secretly, either in homes that change daily, or via the Internet, with the use of secret codes to communicate with students.

The question that worries me, and there is no doubt that it worries many, is why the clerics, Shiites and Sunnis, who number in their thousands, are silent and do not condemn the action of the Taliban movement that rules Afghanistan? Do they not consider preventing girls from receiving higher education a crime against them?

Is preventing a woman from leaving her home, or allowing her to travel without a mahram, in this era that we are in, something that the rational mind can accept?

What does a woman do who has no helper, no mahram, and no money to protect her from the humiliation of asking? How does she feed herself and her children, let alone meet the rest of her needs?

The silence of the masses of so-called scholars, religious institutions, and those wearing turbans about what is happening in Afghanistan is a crime, and a condemnation of every religious man who remained silent and did not object to the unjust and arbitrary laws of the Taliban.

In its response, the Charitable Organization described our accusations as arbitrary and baseless. This is our five-point response to the organization:

First: Had it not been for the vigilance and honesty of Ambassador Ghassan Al-Zawawi, who revealed the fraud incident related to the sale of the land, we might have known nothing about the theft until today.

Second: Saying that the organization is subject to the supervision of the Ministries of Awqaf, and Foreign Affairs is incorrect, and testimony is against it. The only entity, according to the organization law, only Awqaf “has the right” to supervise it and in order to neutralize it, its representative was appointed as a member of the Board of Directors with a rich reward, in a blatant conflict of interest.

Third: The existence of an external audit, no matter how high it may be, is not necessary. The only body that monitors the work of the organization is the endowments, which is completely powerless and I challenge any party to highlight its reports for the past 38 years.

Fourth: The following paragraph was mentioned in the Court of Cassation ruling:

The audit team (on the incident of selling the land subject of the complaint) found many incidents that caused the loss of the funds, including charitable projects whose fate is unknown, such as facilitating the seizure of a loan whose principal was not recovered in the amount of 197 thousand dollars and other serious accusations and financial irregularities accurately mentioned in the court ruling.

So where were the internal and external audit offices, global and local, and the three ministries when all these violations were committed?

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By Ahmad alsarraf