KABUL – The Taliban government on Saturday decreed that Afghan women must cover themselves from head to toe, extending a series of severe restrictions on women that determine nearly every aspect of their lives. aspects of public life.
The government’s Department for the Promotion and Prevention of Virtue recommends the burqa as the preferred garment to cover a woman’s face, hair and body. But it’s not mandatory to wear clothes as long as women cover themselves with a headscarf.
The tight-fitting full-length suit, a symbol of patriarchal control over women’s public dress in Afghanistan, is described by the ministry as a “fine and complete headscarf” – a garment with many Different versions cover a woman’s hair and most or all of a woman’s face and body.
Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August, Afghan women have been subjected to a series of restrictive notices hired employees, education, tourism, deportation and other aspects of public life. Many see the return of the burqa as the inevitable next step.
The burqa, which leaves only a woman’s hands and feet and includes a mesh sewn over her face for vision, was demanded by the Taliban when it ruled most of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.
The Department’s definition of “head covering” on Saturday described a type of clothing that “must not be too short or too tight,” the ministry statement said. The ministry said the purpose was to obscure the contours of a woman’s body.
In public announcements involving women in recent months, the government has often made vague verbal statements that are open to interpretation. In the face of Western condemnation as the Taliban government seeks diplomatic recognition and humanitarian aid, many announcements have been made based on inference and intimidation.
But the ministry, which is in charge of enforcing the government’s interpretation of Islamic law, made a rather specific statement on Saturday about the penalties for male head of women’s who fail to comply with the latest ordinance.
At a three-hour press conference dominated by statements promoting the religious virtues of the burqa, ministry officials and Muslim religious figures issued a series of escalating punishments – including prison sentences for male householders, who repeatedly disregarded government officials’ warnings about women’s clothing.
Report from Afghanistan
If a woman does not wear the required headscarf in public, ministry officials will visit the home and advise the male head of household to ask her to comply, the ministry’s announcement said.
Officials said failure to comply would result in being summoned to the ministry. If the man still doesn’t follow the instructions, he will be jailed for three days.
Ministry officials said that if the prison sentence is not enforced, the man will be forced to appear before a religious court for further punishment.
Male government employees whose wives or daughters do not cover their faces in public will be suspended or fired, the notice said. And the small number of women still allowed to hold positions – such as nurses, doctors and teachers – could be fired if they don’t follow the rules.
“We want our sisters to live with dignity and safety,” said Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, deputy minister of ethics and power.
Shir Mohammad, a senior and ethics official, said in a statement that “all dignified Afghan women” should cover themselves from head to toe. He added: “Women who are not too old or too young must cover their faces, except for their eyes.
Since the Taliban took over in August, many women in Kabul appear to have begun wearing burqas. But the majority of women on the streets of the capital continue to wear less-protective versions of headscarves, with many covering only their hair and leaving most or all of their faces.
Even under the previous Western-backed government, many women – especially in rural areas and small towns – continued to wear burqas. The history of this type of clothing goes back generations in Afghanistan and is a product of conservative Afghan culture long before the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s.
At Saturday’s press conference, religious speakers delivered treatises on the Islamic history of the hijab and its benefits under Islamic law and practice.
The ministry has instructed officials across Afghanistan to post posters in markets and other public places with instructions and pictures of approved women’s garments. In recent months, small posters have appeared in Kabul depicting head-to-toe headscarves, including burqas, as appropriate public attire for women.
On Saturday, ministry officials said the “judgment, importance and benefits of the headscarf” should be discussed at mosques and distributed through news media.
In September, the Taliban switched the previous government Women’s set to the office for the position of Deputy Ambassador and Temperance Ambassador. Under the Taliban government in the 1990s, women who did not wear a burqa in public were often beaten by religious police and religious police, who also issued warnings to male relatives.
Also on Saturday, a spokesman for an Afghan opposition group that has organized an uprising against the Taliban government repeated earlier claims that it had “liberated” three districts in the northern province of Panjshir. . Asked if National Front of ResistanceAs the self-proclaimed movement, has seized government district centers, the spokesman replied by text message, “They’ve been surrounded in district offices,” referring to Taliban officials.
Taliban government spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid, said on Twitter that “no military incidents took place” in Panjshir or any other nearby areas. The claims of the National Resistance Front “are not true, no one should worry,” Mujahid wrote.
He added that thousands of Emirati fighters were in Panjshir and prevented any military advance of the front.
The National Resistance Front, or NRF, was founded by a number of leaders or supporters of Afghanistan’s Western-backed government before it collapsed last summer. This is part of a resistance that includes an array of armed fighters scattered across the mountains of northern Afghanistan, according to interviews with more than a dozen fighters and resistance leaders.
The NRF estimates there are several hundred fighters, many of them low-ranking officers in the former government’s security forces. It is led by Ahmad Massoud, son of the deceased Northern Union leader Ahmad Shah Massoud. Mr. Massoud left Afghanistan after the Taliban took power and has directed the NRF from abroad.
Yaqoob Akbary and Thomas Gibbons-Neff contribution report.
