The move drew broad condemnation from human rights activists."Matiullah Wesa was involved in some suspicious activities,” Zabiullah Mujahid, the spokesperson of the Taliban government told OCCRP on Friday.
He said that Wesa held gatherings without informing the government about them and that he is now under investigation.
“It is up to the institutions to clarify his suspicious activities. It is the right of a government to arrest and interrogate people who disturb the public order," he said.
Wesa, 30, was previously repeatedly threatened for touring the country and advocating for the rights of girls to go to school.
His PenPath network has helped set up classrooms and has distributed books to children in remote areas of Afghanistan.
Hours before his arrest, he tweeted a photo of female volunteers "asking for the Islamic rights to education for their daughters.
"Witnesses said that Wesa was arrested in Kabul as he was leaving the mosque after the evening prayer.
Since they came to power in 2021, the Taliban have severely restricted the simplest of freedoms of women, including traveling longer distanced without male company, covering their entire bodies apart from their eyes or going to school.
The United Nations as well as many human rights groups and advocates have called for Wesa’s immediate release.
“The arbitrary arrest of Wesa by the Taliban is against international human rights principles.
The Taliban are accusing him of illegal activities while his arbitrary arrest, house search and humiliation of his family members itself explains that the Taliban believe in no law but misuse the fact that they are in power,” Samira Hamidi from Amnesty International South Asia told OCCRP.
The arrest is an attempt to silence anyone speaking out against “the Taliban’s repression and challenge their draconian policies,” she said, adding that the international community’s only response is social media condemnation.
Pakistan's youngest Nobel Peace Prize laureate and education campaigner Malala Yousafzai, who survived a brutal assassination attempt by the Taliban in 2012, demanded the release of Wesa and labeled his arrest as an assault on education in Afghanistan.
“While banning girls from school, the Taliban are also arresting champions of education.
Matiullah Wesa founded PenPath to provide mobile schools & libraries to Afghan girls and boys. The Taliban must release him and all those imprisoned for educating children,” Yousafzai tweeted.
Afghanistan is currently the only country in the world that has banned girls from school just because of their gender.
