Poster of Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada. | Photo courtesy: AFP
Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada has ordered Afghan authorities to curtail women’s rights and enact a new sweeping morality law setting out a rigid concept of Islamic society.
Taliban authorities last month announced the law, which includes a rule that women’s faces, bodies and voices must be “covered” when outside the home, as well as 35 articles dictating behaviour and lifestyle.
Although several measures have been implemented informally, Taliban takeover in 2021Their formal codification generated considerable opposition from the international community and rights groups.
A statement issued by the Faryab province’s information and culture department said Mr Akhundzada told civil and military officials “that they should implement the law to promote virtue in society.”
The reclusive Akhundzada rules by decree from a hideout in southern Kandahar province, but he gave the order during a rare visit to northern Faryab last week, according to the statement issued on Sunday (September 1, 2024).
The new law prevents women from raising their voices in public places and requires them to cover their entire body and face if they have to leave their homes, which they must do only “when necessary”.
The order also strictly regulates men’s behaviour and clothing, with men told not to wear shorts above the knees or trim their beards.
Other parts of the law ban attendance at prayers, as well as possessing pictures of living creatures, homosexuality, animal fighting, playing music in public places, and non-Muslim holidays.
The law provides for a graded set of punishments that the morality police are empowered to administer, ranging from verbal warnings to threats, fines and detention of varying periods.
Roza Otunbayeva, head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, described the law as “a worrying outlook for the future of Afghanistan”.
Akhundzada was in Faryab on Friday (August 29, 2024) after visiting Badghis province in his first official visit to northern Afghanistan since the Taliban took over, Shamsullah Mohammadi, head of Faryab’s information and culture department, said.