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Step by step since they returned to power in Afghanistan 16 months ago, the Taliban have sought to erase women from public view. Yesterday they banned female students from attending public and private universities, effectively ending education for girls beyond the sixth grade.

That may turn out to have been a step too far. Male university students refused to take their exams. Professors resigned. Social media buzzed with hashtags supporting education for girls. In Jalalabad and Kabul, university students – men and women – staged open protests today despite the risk of violent reprisal. “How can we sit idly by as millions of girls are denied their human rights,” Afghan journalist Lina Rozbih tweeted. 

What was meant as a sign of strength has instead exposed a weakness – amplifying a remarkable turn in the relationship between Islam and political power. In the world’s two most repressive theocratic states, Iran and Afghanistan, women’s rights have become a battle cry for democratic renewal. That points to a transformation at work within both societies – a rejection of religion as justification for condemnation and harm, and its restoration as a wellspring of equality, joy, and unfettered individuality.

The voices of reform are becoming a chorus. “Education is obligatory for both men and women, without any discrimination,” the Taliban’s deputy foreign minister, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, said last month, appealing in a rare public break with senior Taliban leaders for a reopening of secondary schools for girls. “No one can offer a justification based on sharia [Islamic law] for opposing this.”

“Now, it’s people who know they have no way out of the country who are taking to the streets,” a female teacher in Kabul, who asked not to be named for security reasons, told The New Humanitarian. “They know they have nowhere else to go, and so they are demanding their basic rights under Islam.”

“Islam is what guarantees women their rights to participate within society and their rights to education,” Pakistani Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said in September. “So we expect, not only in Afghanistan but across the world, for women to not only be guaranteed these rights but also for these rights to be protected.”

The Taliban’s increasingly restrictive rule may be a response to their lack of credibility. No country has recognized their government. The United Nations estimates that 90% of the population is food insecure. Increasing violence and terrorist activity have scared off even the most avid foreign investors like China. Skirmishes along the borders with Pakistan and Iran are escalating.

Perhaps most threatening to their rule is a persistent defiance among Afghans themselves. Across the country, fathers and tribal elders have implored the Taliban to reopen schools for girls. In cities like Kabul, decrees banning females from classrooms and public places of entertainment have driven women to start schools and gyms underground. “Our generation fought for equality,” Laila Ahmad, who runs a clandestine exercise class in her basement in Kabul, told The Japan Times today. “We will not give up and remain silent. Even though we can’t play music, we still dance.” 

For the hardened men of cloth in Afghanistan, as in Iran, stifling the human spirit is a hard problem.