On Friday, CBS This Morning reported on news that Duke University had cancelled plans to have a Muslim call-to-prayer projected from the school’s famous bell tower at the Duke Chapel and, while Duke suggested that there were “several factors” that led to the decision, the segment prominently tied it to Rev. Franklin Graham and subsequent threats against them. CBS News correspondent Julianna Goldman fretted that the cancellation came as “students, faculty, and administrators spent months working on a new way to make campus feel more inclusive for its 700 Muslims.”
The UN's special rapporteur for Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, has called for the immediate and unconditional release of Parisa Mubariz, a women’s rights activist.
The United Nations' aid chief visited Kabul on January 23 and raised concerns over women's education and work with the Taliban administration's acting minister of foreign affairs, an Afghan ministry statement said.
The rule of the Taliban's supreme leader, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada, has been defined by extremist policies that have alienated Afghans and isolated the Islamist group's unrecognized government internationally.