The Taliban on Saturday doubled down on their ban on women’s education, reinforcing in a message to private universities that Afghan women are barred from taking university entry exams, a spokesman said.

The note comes despite weeks of condemnation and lobbying by the international community for a reversal on measures restricting women’s freedoms, including two back-to-back visits this month by several senior UN officials.

The Taliban barred women from private and public universities last month. The higher education minister in the Taliban-run government, Nida Mohammed Nadim, has maintained that the ban is necessary to prevent the mixing of genders in universities — and because he believes some subjects being taught violate Islamic principles.

Work was underway to fix these issues and universities would reopen for women once they were resolved, he had said in a TV interview. The Taliban have made similar promises about middle school and high school access for girls, saying classes would resume for them once “technical issues” around uniforms and transport were sorted out.

But girls remain shut out of classrooms beyond sixth grade. Higher education ministry spokesman Ziaullah Hashmi said on Saturday that a letter reminding private universities not to allow women to take entrance exams was sent out.

A copy of the letter, shared with The AP, warned that women could not take the “entry test for bachelor, master and doctorate levels” and that if any university disobeys the edict, “legal action will be taken against the violator”.