Pakistan: Taliban forces closure of girls' schools in north

Mingora - Around 400 private girls' schools in Pakistan's restive northwestern Swat district have closed to comply with a Taliban deadline which expired on Thursday. Some parents have even begun moving to other parts of the country where their girls can attend school, Pakistan's Geo News reported on Friday. The closure of the private schools will deprive more than 40,000 students of their basic right to education. In addition, 84,248 girls students in state-run schools are unlikely to attend class because of fear of attacks by militants.Private school owners in Swat say the schools will not reopen until the unrest in the picturesque valley ends or the Taliban revokes the ban.School owners in Mingora, Swat's central administrative district, say that even if they kept the schools open, parents would be unlikely to send their children there.There are over 350 privately-owned schools in Swat, each with separate sections for boys and girls, according to data available from a local association of schools.Over the past year, the Taliban has ordered most of the schools to close and destroyed nearly 150 schools.Pakistani daily The News reported that following appeals to the Taliban, it has softened its stance, allowing girls to attain education up to the fourth grade. However, local militant leader Maulana Fazlullah has renewed the Taliban's threat to bomb educational institutions including 20 colleges, if any school continues to provide secondary education for the girls.The Taliban's central spokesman, Maulvi Omar, has distanced his movement from Taliban militants in Swat over their ban on girls' schooling and urged Fazullah to withdraw the ban, The News reported.Private schools also urged to the militants to withdraw the ultimatum in the interests of hundreds of female teachers, most of them lone breadwinners, as well as those of many thousands of female students affected by the ban.