Education Ministry blames Taliban, threatens to punish the girls who fake poisoning. Meanwhile, fear of poisoning has kept many girls away from schools.

Kabul (AsiaNews/Agencies) - Afghanistan's Education Minister Ghulam Farooq Wardak has threatened to punish schoolgirls that claim to have been poisoned if tests show no evidence of poison. On 2 May, about 200 girls were hospitalised in Kabul with poisoning symptoms, but no evidence of poison was found. Many of the girls were released only after a few hours. "I will punish the student," the minister said through his department spokesman. "I will punish the teacher, I will punish the head teacher and I will punish the school director".

In the past year, similar incidents have occurred in several parts of the country. Matthieu Aikins, a journalist with the International Herald Tribune who lives in Kabul, has looked into some cases reported in June of last year.

Citing World Health Organisation studies, he reports that, despite extensive lab tests, no actual toxins were ever found. Instead, the phenomenon is akin to a  'psychological disorder', a plausible argument also made by psychiatrist Noor Moshaiq.

This does not mean that the schoolgirls are making up their story, but rather that repeated reports of mass poisoning coupled with the government's nonchalant denial of the problem triggered panic in the girls' families, which began pulling their daughters out of school.

The studies that followed poisoning allegations are open to interpretation and controversy. Last year, in the city of Takhar, Afghan intelligence officers arrested two schoolgirls and forced them to confess that they had poisoned their classmates under duress from the Taliban. A videotape made during their interrogation has generated controversy among their families and local physicians.

For Dr Sayed Abed, a specialist at Takhar's provincial hospital, there is no evidence of poisoning. "We just give them an IV and send them home when they feel better," he said. His colleague Dr Hafizullah Safi is more circumspect because of the evidence produced by the National Directorate of Security.

In 2001, the Taliban banned female education. For this reason and because of their well-known rejection of progress, the Kabul government has accused them of using poison to discourage girls from going to school. Boys in fact have never been victims of incidents of this kind.

Yet, laboratory tests have found no evidence of poisoning, a case for Minister Wardak of 'psychological illness'.

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