New Morality law of Taliban :
– The official gazette says that women must cover their entire bodies and faces “due to the fear of temptation”.
– A woman’s voice — singing, chanting, or reciting aloud — is considered awrah or intimate and must not be heard.
– Whenever a grown woman leaves her house out of necessity, she is obliged to cover her voice, face, and body.
– Unrelated men and women are not allowed to even look at each other.
– Men must grow their beards, and must not wear neckties or have Western-style haircuts.
– All games and forms of entertainment, even traditional children’s games played with marbles or walnuts, are banned as a form of gambling.
– Travel must be planned to avoid times of prayer, and drivers are forbidden from transporting women who are not accompanied by a related male guardian.
– ‘Muhtasibs’ or the moral police have been the power to arbitrarily punish anyone physically or send them to three days in prison for so-called moral crimes, based on suspicion, without any requirement for evidence or due process.
– Muhtasibs can force people to revere Islamic symbols, and can check phones and laptops to ensure there are no images of living beings.
– They have to ensure that women’s voices or music do not emanate from homes or gatherings, as per the new law.
– The law also imposes severe restrictions on freedom of expression, including bans on publishing content deemed contrary to their understanding of Sharia.
– The law further criminalises and persecutes LGBTQ+ people and restricts the rights of religious minorities, including by forbidding “non-Islamic” ceremonies and prohibiting association with or assistance to “non-believers”.
Women’s Rights In Afghan :
– Many of the “morality” laws have already been in place in Afghanistan, with some imposed haphazardly by local enforcers.
– But this was not the case in Afghanistan at the start of the 20th century.
– Afghan women were granted the right to vote in 1919, a year before women in the US.
– The early 1920s saw a rush to modernise the country with changes in dress and education opportunities, led by the royal family, which sparked a backlash from conservative forces.
– Upper class women and some in rural areas enjoyed their rights and participation in public life from the 1960s to 1980s.
– Women became ministers and judges, doctors and diplomats, singers and entertainers.
– However, women’s social, economic and political status deteriorated during the Taliban’s first takeover from 1996 to 2001 during which they imposed the Sharia law.
– During the two decades before the Taliban came back to power, a new generation of young women grew up in relative freedom to study and work, and many hoped that the Taliban had also changed its stance