'Against Islamic teachings': Taliban bans sight-saving eye operations

Taliban authorities verbally instructed surgeons to halt the operations, warning against carrying out the procedure.

In its latest crackdown on human rights, the Taliban has now banned corneal transplant operations in Afghanistan, declaring the sight-saving procedure contrary to Islamic teachings and ordering hospitals to stop carrying them out. The move threatens to leave hundreds of people, particularly young patients who have lost their eyesight in explosions and accidents, without access to treatment.

According to a report by The Telegraph, Taliban authorities verbally instructed surgeons to halt the operations, warning against carrying out the procedure. Dr Noor Zaman Hashim of Noor Eye Hospital in Kabul said his facility had performed around 90 transplants in recent months before the directive brought the programme to a standstill. The hospital has since accumulated a waiting list, largely comprising young people who lost their eyesight due to trauma, explosions, accidents and welding-related injuries.

“Decades of violence have devastated Afghanistan’s healthcare infrastructure. We neither have sufficient ophthalmologists nor locally available corneas to meet the demand for transplants,” Hashim told The Telegraph. “The Taliban have verbally instructed us to stop the transplants. Nobody has the courage to defy their orders because of the risk of severe punishment,” he added.

The programme was supported by the Association of Physicians of Pakistani Descent of North America (APPNA), a US-based charitable organisation that has provided free donor corneas for transplant operations in Pakistan since 2017. Earlier this year, it expanded its work into Afghanistan, facilitating more than 150 operations. Three Afghan ophthalmologists were also trained in Peshawar to perform the procedures.

The latest prohibition adds to a growing list of restrictions imposed by the Taliban since returning to power in 2021. The administration has banned chess over concerns about gambling and restricted internet access in several provinces, citing the need to prevent immoral activities. It has also removed 140 books written by women from university curricula and ordered universities to discontinue 18 subjects, including courses on human rights and women's studies. Girls remain barred from education beyond the sixth grade, while professional midwifery training programmes have also been shut down.