Taliban Sentences Paktika Teacher to Two Years in Prison for Advocating Modern Education

RASC News Agency: A teacher in southeastern Afghanistan has been sentenced to two years in prison by Taliban authorities for the “crime” of promoting modern education an alarming sign of the regime’s deepening hostility toward intellectual progress and free thought. Local sources confirmed that Abdul Aleem Khamoosh, a respected educator from Jalalzoi village in Janikhel district of Paktika province, was convicted by a Taliban-controlled court for allegedly “spreading corruption.” His real offense, however, appears to be his insistence on the value of contemporary, science-based learning a stance that directly challenges the Taliban’s ideologically rigid and anti-modern worldview.
Khamoosh had been teaching at a local educational center, where he reportedly encouraged students to pursue knowledge beyond the narrow confines of the Taliban’s religious orthodoxy. In doing so, he became a target for a regime that sees independent thought and critical education as existential threats to its authoritarian grip on power. Although Taliban officials in Paktika have remained silent on the matter, similar cases have emerged across Afghanistan, where teachers, academics, and education activists are being detained, intimidated, or silenced under vague and abusive charges. Under Taliban rule, promoting critical thinking or encouraging students especially girls to imagine a future outside the regime’s ideological confines is increasingly met with imprisonment or worse.
The imprisonment of Abdul Aleem Khamoosh is not an isolated incident; it is part of a calculated campaign by the Taliban to erase any form of progressive education. Since the group’s return to power in 2021, it has systematically banned girls and women from schools and universities, gutted secular education, and turned classrooms into tools of indoctrination. Human rights organizations and global education advocates have expressed growing concern about the Taliban’s blatant dismantling of educational institutions and suppression of educators. They warn that such actions not only violate basic human rights but also deprive an entire generation of Afghanistani youth of the knowledge and skills needed to rebuild their shattered country.
Khamoosh’s imprisonment is a tragic reminder of the price paid by those who dare to teach under tyranny. His courage underscores the resilience of Afghanistan’s educators, who continue to resist a regime intent on dragging the country back into darkness. Unless the international community acts swiftly to support Afghanistan’s remaining educators and demand accountability from the Taliban, more voices like Khamoosh’s will be silenced and with them, the future of an entire nation.