source: http://www.iht.com/bin/printfriendly.php?id=12878684
A teacher was shot to death in northern Afghanistan after he gave a
speech condemning suicide bombings, officials said Wednesday.
Abdul Hadi criticized such attacks as un-Islamic and un-Afghan during
a speech Tuesday in the Archi district of Kunduz province, said Khair
Mohammad Subat, the provincial education department director.
Hadi spoke at a gathering of about 700 people, including the Kunduz
governor, and was on his way home when he was killed, Subat said.
Kunduz police chief Gen. Mohammad Ayub Salangi said police were
investigating. No arrests have been made.
In January, Education Minister Mohammad Hanif Atmar said the number of
students and teachers killed in Taliban attacks spiked in the past
year in a campaign to close schools and force teenage boys to join the
Islamic militia.
According to UNICEF, there were 236 school-related attacks last year.
In central Logar province, meanwhile, education department director
Kamaluddin Zadran said three girls schools have been set ablaze in the
past three weeks.
Girls were barred from schools under the Taliban regime. After the
Taliban fell in 2001, girls were allowed to return to attend, but many
conservative and uneducated Afghans still forbid their girls from
going.
Arsonists regularly attack girls schools. Last year, gunmen killed two
students walking outside a girls school in Logar.
Education Ministry statistics indicate only 35 percent of students
enrolled are girls.
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