Afghan professor Ismail Mashal went viral on social media late last year after he ripped up his academic degrees live on TV to protest the Taliban's ban on women attending university.
More recently, the 37-year-old professor handed out hundreds of free books to girls and women across the capital, Kabul.
But on February 2, Mashal’s defiance of the Taliban’s restrictions on female education finally caught up with him. The professor was beaten and arrested by Taliban fighters.
Mashal is the latest victim of the Taliban’s crackdown on dissent. Since seizing power in 2021, the hard-line Islamists have violently dispersed peaceful protesters and detained and beaten journalists and activists.
Mashal is among the scores of Afghan university professors and teachers who resigned after the Taliban banned university education for women on December 20, in a move that triggered a local and international outcry. Mashal also closed the private Mashal University, which had some 400 students, that he had founded.
During the past 16 months, the Taliban has imposed dozens of restrictions on women’s appearances, freedom of movement, and their right to work and receive an education.
Only girls below the sixth grade are allowed to attend school. High schools for girls have been closed, despite repeated promises to reopen them.
"As the schools and universities are closed, I want these books to be distributed to impoverished Afghans," Mashal told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi on February 2, just hours before his arrest.
Recently, Mashal stacked dozens of books on a cart every day and distributed them for free to residents in Kabul. They were part of his personal collection of around 21,000 books.
احتجاجي حرکت؛ استاد مشعل وايي چې خلکو ته به ۲۱ زره کتابونه په وړيا توګه ورکړي. د پوهنتون استاد اسماعیل مشعل چې څه موده وړاندې یې د طالبانو له خوا د نجونو پر زده کړو د بندیز په اعتراض کې خپل اکاډمیک اسناد وشلول، اوس خلکو ته په لاس جوړ شوي کراچۍ کتابونه ډالۍ کوي. pic.twitter.com/qBPhsI9wNi
— BILAL SARWARY (@bsarwary) February 1, 2023
Mashal named the cart "iqra," which means “read” in Arabic. It is also the name of a chapter in the Koran, Islam’s holy book, which instructs Muslim to read.
"We now have to provide our people with books and pens in their homes," he told Radio Azadi.
Mashal’s latest form of protest was the last straw for the Taliban. Mashal was arrested as he was distributing books in Kabul’s Dehbori Park.
“He was arrested and beaten,” Ustad Farid, a friend, told Radio Azadi. “They beat him because he distributed books to the people. They took him to an unknown location.”
Abdul Haq Hammad, a Taliban official from the Information and Culture Ministry, accused Mashal of “provoking people against the [current political] system.”
In a tweet, Hammad claimed that Mashaal was not mistreated and allowed to contact his family.
Mashal is not the first Afghan university professor to be arrested by the Taliban.
Law professor Faizullah Jalal during an interview with Tolo News, an independent television station in Afghanistan
Kabul University professor Faizullah Jalal was detained for several days in November 2021 after criticizing the Taliban on TV.
The law and political science professor had openly engaged in a heated live debate with Taliban spokesman Mohammad Naeem on the private Tolo News channel. During the back and forth, Jalal accused the Taliban of stifling free speech and called Naeem a “calf,” an insult in Afghanistan that means stupid. That came after Naeem questioned Jalal’s sanity and alleged he was a communist.
Following Jalal's detention, which was condemned by Amnesty International and other rights watchdogs, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid tweeted that he had been detained for inciting violence against the Taliban through social media.