Kabul University - Name

Name

Officially, the university is known by the Pashto name Da Kābul Pohantūn (دکابل پوهنتون). It has been suggested to use three official names in Pashto, Persian (دانشگاه کابل) and English (University of Kabul); most of all, because Persian-speaking students feel discriminated by the governmental ban of the Persian word for university. This led to a clash between students and the police in November 2008, as mostly Persian-speaking students demanded to lift the ban on Persian words.

Previously, the Minister of Culture, Information, Tourism and Youth Affairs, Karim Khoram, had decided to ban the use of Persian expressions in government institutions and in state-controlled media, and a young journalist for a state newspaper was fined for using the Persian word for university in a report. A similar clash took place a few weeks earlier in the mostly Persian-speaking city of Mazar-e Sharif in northern Afghanistan. As a result, that university's name was officially changed from Pashto (Pohantūn-e Balkh) to Persian (Dāneshgāh-e Balkh).