The Taliban’s infamous non secular police have detained scores of Afghan ladies and ladies in current weeks for allegedly violating the extremist group’s Islamic gown code.
Amongst them was Zahra’s youthful sister, who was detained within the capital, Kabul, in early January for allegedly failing to cowl herself from head to toe in public.
“My sister was humiliated and tortured whereas in Taliban custody,” Zahra, whose title has been modified to guard her id, informed RFE/RL’s Radio Azadi. “They informed her that she was an infidel as a result of she wore tight garments.”
Zahra stated her household was pressured to pay Taliban officers almost $12,000 in bribes to safe her launch.
The Taliban’s crackdown on ladies who allegedly violate the hard-line Islamist group’s gown code is the newest blow to Afghan ladies. Since seizing energy in 2021, the Taliban has severely curtailed ladies’s proper to work and research, and imposed restrictions on their appearances and freedom of motion.
In Could 2022, the Taliban ordered all ladies to put on the all-encompassing burqa or an Islamic abaya gown and niqab that covers the hair, physique, and many of the face in public. The latter is frequent within the Arab Gulf states.
Afghan ladies, particularly these in city areas, think about the burqa and niqab to be alien to Afghan tradition. Earlier than the Taliban’s return to energy, many ladies wore free head scarves that solely hid their hair.
The Taliban’s enforcement of the gown code was sporadic and uneven throughout the nation. However activists say that for the reason that flip of the 12 months, the group has intensified the enforcement of the regulation.
’Going By means of Agony’
Masuda Kohistani, a ladies’s rights activist in Kabul, stated the Taliban has even focused ladies and ladies carrying the hijab, a scarf that covers the hair and neck, however leaves the face seen.
Kohistani stated she witnessed members of the Taliban’s non secular police detaining a 20-year-old lady within the suburb of Khairkhana in northern Kabul who was carrying a hijab.
“The shopkeepers tried to argue with the Taliban by declaring that she was observing the hijab, however the militants beat them up,” Kohistani informed Radio Azadi. “Her household goes by means of agony. They do not know what to do as they wrestle to search out her.”
The Taliban’s non secular police is overseen by the Ministry for the Promotion of Advantage and the Prevention of Vice, which is answerable for imposing the Taliban’s morality legal guidelines, together with its strict gown code and gender segregation in society.
A younger lady, who requested anonymity for concern of retribution, informed Radio Azadi that the Taliban on January 3 detained a number of ladies in Dasht-e Barchi, a neighborhood in Kabul the place many are members of the Shi’ite Hazara minority. She stated she escaped arrest after an older man informed her to cover.
“He informed me to run in direction of my home as a result of the Taliban had simply arrested a number of ladies within the neighborhood,” she stated.
Mina Rafiq, a ladies’s rights activist in Kabul, stated the Taliban’s crackdown started in Kabul however has expanded to different elements of the nation, together with the central province of Daikundi, the western province of Herat, and the northern provinces of Balkh, Kunduz, and Takhar.
“Now, we’re not even allowed to decide on the garments we put on,” she informed Radio Azadi. “How will they ever enable us to get an schooling or converse freely?”
It’s unclear precisely what number of ladies have been detained in current weeks.
’Demeaning And Harmful’
The United Nations and world rights watchdogs have condemned the Taliban’s newest clampdown on ladies.
“The Taliban’s dress-code crackdown and arbitrary arrests is an additional violation of girls’s freedom of motion and expression in Afghanistan,” Amnesty Worldwide stated on January 14. “The crackdown should instantly be ceased, and people detained launched.”
The United Nations Help Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) stated on January 11 that it was wanting into claims of mistreatment of girls and extortion in alternate for his or her launch.
“Enforcement measures involving bodily violence are particularly demeaning and harmful for Afghan ladies and ladies,” stated Roza Otunbayeva, UN particular envoy and head of the mission.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the chief Taliban spokesman, dismissed UNAMA’s issues.
“Afghan ladies put on the hijab on their very own,” he wrote on X, previously often known as Twitter. “Neither have they been pressured to take action, nor has the ministry of vice and advantage mistreated them.”
Afghan activists stated the crackdown is one other main blow to ladies, who’ve been successfully erased from public life.
“The state of affairs for girls in Afghanistan is changing into worse on daily basis,” stated Ruqiya Saee, a ladies’s rights activist in Kabul.