The Taliban has put up posters in Kandahar saying that Muslim women who do not wear Hijab are ‘seeking to look like beasts.’ The posters were put up by the Taliban’s religious police. The Taliban, who took control from the West-backed government in August of last year, has increasingly displayed signs of reverting to its rigid Islamic rule.
In the two decades following 9/11, women’s rights in Afghanistan improved marginally. However, under the Taliban government, these little advances are being eroded. Hibatullah Akhundzada, the country’s supreme commander and Taliban head, issued a directive in May ordering women to stay at home in general. They were instructed to cover their whole bodies, including their faces if they had to go out in public.
The Taliban’s dreaded Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, which enforces the group’s rigid interpretation of Islam, put up posters featuring pictures of burqas, a form of garment that covers a woman’s body from head to toe, around Kandahar city this week.
The posters, which have been plastered on several cafés and stores as well as advertising hoardings around Kandahar — the Taliban’s de facto power centre — claim that ‘Muslim women who do not wear the hijab are attempting to seem like animals’. According to the posters, wearing short, tight, and revealing attire was also against Akhundzada’s rule.
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