SAR’s Academic Freedom Monitoring Project investigates and reports attacks on higher education with the aim of raising awareness, generating advocacy, and increasing protection for scholars, students, and academic communities. Starting July 1, 2026, SAR no longer publishes reports for the incidents that it records. SAR continues to monitor and record incidents that will be used in the annual Free to Think report. This page provides a record of incidents reported up to that date. Learn more about the Academic Freedom Monitoring Project.

Date of Incident: August 25, 2025

Attack Types: Other

Institution(s):Multiple Institutions

Region & Country:Southern Asia | Afghanistan

New or Ongoing:New Incident

On August 25 and 26, 2025, the Taliban’s Ministry of Higher Education issued two directives banning public and private universities from teaching 680 books written by women, Persian, or western authors and from offering 18 courses.

The 50-page list of banned books included about 140 written by women, 319 written by Iranian authors, and 20 written by Arab or western authors. Among the topics banned were those relating to democracy, human rights, good governance, globalization, development, gender studies, womens’ rights, the history of religion, moral philosophy, Islamic political movements, and the political sociology of Afghanistan. A member of the review committee confirmed that the goal of the ban was to prevent universities from teaching books written by women and to “Islamicize” the curriculum according to the Taliban’s interpretation of Islam.

A committee consisting of religious scholars and experts made the decision about which books and courses to ban. Ziaur Rahman Aryubi, the deputy academic director in the Taliban’s ministry of Higher Education announced the bans in two letters sent to universities.

Scholars at Risk is concerned about state censorship and interference with institutional autonomy and academic freedom. While national officials have a right to express their views about the content of research, teaching, and discourse, they have an obligation to refrain from interference into the selection of that content. State censorship and threatened retaliation or sanctions against individuals or institutions undermine university autonomy, academic freedom, and democratic society generally.

Sources:
https://www.bbc.com/persian/articles/clyl9w2g2kjo
https://www.independentpersian.com/node/416360/%D8%B3%DB%8C%D8%A7%D8%B3%DB%8C-%D9%88-%D8%A7%D8%AC%D8%AA%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B9%DB%8C/%D8%B7%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%A8%D8%A7%D9%86%DB%8C%E2%80%8C%D8%B3%D8%A7%D8%B2%DB%8C-%D9%86%D8%B8%D8%A7%D9%85-%D8%AF%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%B4%DA%AF%D8%A7%D9%87%DB%8C-%D8%AF%D8%B1-%D8%A7%D9%81%D8%BA%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%B3%D8%AA%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%9B-%D8%AA%D8%AF%D8%B1%DB%8C%D8%B3-%D8%AD%D8%AF%D9%88%D8%AF-%DB%B7%DB%B0%DB%B0-%D8%B9%D9%86%D9%88%D8%A7%D9%86-%DA%A9%D8%AA%D8%A7%D8%A8-%D9%85%D9%86%D8%B9
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/19/world/asia/taliban-ban-women-author-books.html
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/9/19/afghanistan-bans-female-authors-from-university-curricula