Afghanistan

[RTH10260]

‘Frightening’ Taliban law bans women from speaking in public
New vice and virtue restrictions offer ‘a distressing vision of Afghanistan’s future’, says UN

Annie Kelly and Zahra Joya for Rukhshana Media
Mon 26 Aug 2024 15.53 CEST

New Taliban laws that prohibit women from speaking or showing their faces outside their homes have been condemned by the UN and met with horror by human rights groups.

The Taliban published a host of new “vice and virtue” laws last week, approved by their supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, which state that women must completely veil their bodies – including their faces – in thick clothing at all times in public to avoid leading men into temptation and vice.

Women’s voices are also deemed to be potential instruments of vice and so will not be allowed to be heard in public under the new restrictions. Women must also not be heard singing or reading aloud, even from inside their houses.

“Whenever an adult woman leaves her home out of necessity, she is obliged to conceal her voice, face, and body,” the new laws state.

Men will also be required to cover their bodies from their navels to their knees when they are outside their homes.

From now on, Afghan women are also not allowed to look directly at men they are not related to by blood or marriage, and taxi drivers will be punished if they agree to drive a woman who is without a suitable male escort.

Women or girls who fail to comply can be detained and punished in a manner deemed appropriate by Taliban officials charged with upholding the new laws.

The restrictions have been condemned by Roza Otunbayeva, the special UN’s representative for Afghanistan, who has said they extend the “intolerable restrictions” on the rights of women and girls already imposed by the Taliban since they took power in August 2021.

“It is a distressing vision for Afghanistan’s future, where moral inspectors have discretionary powers to threaten and detain anyone based on broad and sometimes vague lists of infractions,” she said in a statement on Sunday. “It extends the already intolerable restrictions on the rights of Afghan women and girls, with even the sound of a female voice outside the home apparently deemed a moral violation.”

Speaking to Rukhshana Media, Mir Abdul Wahid Sadat, the president of the Afghan Lawyers Association, said that the new laws contradicted Afghanistan’s domestic and international legal obligations.

“From a legal standpoint this document faces serious issues,” he said. “It contradicts the fundamental principles of Islam [where] the promotion of virtue has never been defined through force, coercion, or tyranny.

“This document not only violates Afghanistan’s domestic laws but also broadly contravenes all 30 articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”



https://www.theguardian.com/global-deve ... fghanistan

[AndyinPA]

That's horrid.

[RTH10260]

Thank you DonOLD

Taliban-run media stops showing images of living beings in some Afghan provinces
A Taliban official says official media have stopped showing images of living beings in some Afghan provinces to comply with morality laws

ByThe Associated Press
October 15, 2024, 11:25 AM

ISLAMABAD -- Taliban run-media have stopped showing images of living beings in some Afghan provinces to comply with morality laws, an official confirmed Tuesday.

In August, the country’s Vice and Virtue Ministry published laws regulating aspects of everyday life like public transportation, shaving, the media and celebrations reflecting authorities' interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia.

Article 17 bans the publication of images of living beings, sparking concerns about the consequences for Afghan media and press freedom.

A spokesman for the Vice and Virtue Ministry, Saif ul Islam Khyber, said government media in the provinces of Takhar, Maidan Wardak and Kandahar have been advised not to air or show images of anything with a soul — meaning people and animals.

Khyber told The Associated Press a day earlier that the ministry was responsible for implementing the morality laws.

He did not clarify if the rules affected all media, including foreign outlets, or only Afghan channels and websites.

Nor did he say how the laws would be enforced or if there was a deadline for compliance.

Hujjatullah Mujadidi, the director of the Afghan Independent Journalists Union, said that Vice and Virtue Ministry officials initially told state media to stop running pictures and videos of living beings. This request was later extended to all media in those provinces.

“Last night, independent local media (in some provinces) also stopped running these videos and images and are instead broadcasting nature videos,” Mujadidi said.

No other Muslim-majority country imposes similar restrictions, including Iran and Saudi Arabia. During their previous rule in the late 1990s, the Taliban banned most television, radio and newspapers altogether.



https://abcnews.go.com/International/wi ... -114803854