Despite facing threats to his life, professor Ismail Mashal has stood defiantly against the Taliban’s restrictions on women’s education in the country

Girls in Afghanistan have already been barred from secondary schools. Since the Taliban took power last year, they have gradually limited the access of women and girls to public spaces

While in the past the Taliban maintained that women would be accorded their rights, in work, education and society at large, the latest decision to enforce a dress code in public and allow them to leave their homes only in cases of necessity has raised alarms internationally