Select Page

Afghanistan: Taliban Announces Strict Islamic Law – Women Are in Trouble

Afghanistan: Taliban Announces Strict Islamic Law – Women Are in Trouble

As if life for women living under Taliban rule in Afghanistan wasn’t hard enough already, the group’s supreme leader has made official a new morality law that will subjugate them even further.

The Sharia-inspired law requires women to cover their faces and bodies when outside the home, prohibits them from raising their voices in public, and instructs them to remain inside whenever possible. 

“When we go out, we’re scared. When we’re on the bus, we’re scared,” said an anonymous woman who spoke with BBC. “We don’t dare to take down our masks. We even avoid speaking among ourselves, thinking that if someone from the Taliban hears us they could stop and question us. If we can’t speak, why even live? We’re like dead bodies moving around.”

According to psychologists, the draconian restrictions on women in Afghanistan have birthed a pandemic of depression and suicidal thoughts.

The new edict, which Taliban chief Hibatullah Akhundzada describes as “promoting virtue,” also requires men to keep beards and mustaches neatly trimmed and forbids them to wear shorts that fall above the knee. It prohibits all Afghans from playing music in public, celebrating non-Muslim holidays, keeping photos of living beings, engaging in homosexual activity, and participating in or organizing animal fighting events. Violations will be punished by the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Ministry (AKA the “morality police”). Punishments include verbal warnings, fines, threats, and detention.

When she heard about the new law, the woman who spoke with BBC immediately stopped attending her daily English class even though it was one of the few times she was allowed to leave the house. “I decided not to attend the course anymore, because if I go out, I’ll end up speaking, and then something bad might happen. Maybe I won’t return home safely.” 

Understandably, news of Akhundzada’s announcement has provoked outcry from human rights advocates throughout the world. Rosa Otunbayeva, head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, described the law as a ‘distressing vision for the nation’s future.’ In a statement, the EU described it as ‘systematic and systemic abuse that could lead to gender persecution – a crime against humanity – and will hamper relations with with the international community. 

The new limitations will make it even harder for the few women who are brave enough to rebel against the Taliban by operating secret schools – a necessity for women seeking education past grade six.

Shireen, who is part of this underground education system, told BBC she asks God every morning to keep her alive until the end of the day. “When the new law came, I explained all its rules to my students and told them things would be more difficult…[The Taliban] don’t see women as human beings, just as tools whose only place is inside the home.” 

The new law was announced during Akhundzada’s first visit to northern Afghanistan since the takeover in 2022. The supreme leader is rarely seen, preferring to run the country from a secret base of operations in southern Kandahar province. Less than two months before his announcement, Taliban officials participated in a first-of-its-kind, UN-led discussion on engagement with Afghanistan. At the insistence of Taliban officials, women’s rights activists and Afghan civil society representatives were not allowed to participate in the meeting.

To make matters worse, the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice Ministry has refused to cooperate with the UN mission in Afghanistan based on its disapproval of the new law.

Author’s Note: This is exactly what we predicted would happen when President Joe Biden completely botched the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in 2021.

Sources:
Taliban Chief Tells Officials to Enforce New Morality Law 
If we can’t speak, why live? – BBC meets women after new Taliban law

About The Author

12 Comments

  1. Mike f

    Alice-This is exactly what we predicted would happen when the orange turd decided to negotiate with the taliban and ignore the prior afghan government. To make matters worse, before the turd left office in 2021, he reduced the military forces in Afghanistan to 2500, hardly enough to have an orderly withdrawal. Now, if I were king in 2021, I would have torn up the turds treaty and started over, so I am not absolving Biden from blame here, but at least half the fault of this debacle belongs in trumps corner….

    Reply
  2. frank stetson

    Mike F: +1, spot on.

    Twenty years we tried to make Afghanistan in our image when the mission was decimate the Taliban and get bin laden. And then Trump did as you say; the Taliban continued to attack while they planned and recruited to meet Trump’s timetable for withdrawal. Trump fired a few missiles in retaliation for Taliban attacks, but not much more. And Biden, and the nation suffered some losses as our brave patriots protected the withdrawal.

    I don’t thing anyone ever says “great surrender and withdrawal.” After 20 years it’s even harder.

    I don’t think there was a good answer here. Obviously, in 20 years of our support, Afghanistan was not ready for democracy.

    Reply
    • Tom

      What else could you do but expect Trump to surrender in a way that makes him look good? He has done more surrendering in his life, lost more legal battles than anyone in the history of the USA. The art of the deal became the art of the steal!!! By not including the legitimate government of Afghanistan in the negotiations, he basically hijacked their government and put himself in as their government – gee, he was planning the same thing here!!! LOL

      Reply
  3. Tom

    Alice:

    1) I hope this example gives women in the USA a better appreciation of U.S. men and all of the rights that women have in this country. Maybe such examples will inspire them to vote against Trump, MAGA, Christian Nationalism and Reconstructionism. Vote for your right to have an abortion Alice!!! (See #2 below)

    2) I hope all will see that this is the course that Trump wishes to embark us on. You don’t think so? Well when you take away a woman’s right to decide what happens to her body, she just lost a right and had a Taliban experience. When you implement Project 2025, women and minorities will lose rights and have many Taliban experiences. Women will be required to stay in abusive marriages just like they do in Taliban. Disparate laws that give minorities the power to collectivize their experiences and sue an entity that is practicing discrimination will be gone just like in the Taliban where suing the government will be deemed as speech against God Almighty. It all starts by fundamentalists taking away one right at a time through the legal system. You do not have to be Islamic fundamentalists to take away rights. Project 2025 is a document written by Christian Nationalists Fundamentalist Re-constructionists hell bent on forcing our democracy into a theocracy with them in control of your rights!!! Vote Trump if you want to lose your rights one by one!! Vote Trump if you want our government to begin the journey of becoming more like Taliban! But Trump will have all of his rights. They will cancel women’s feminism.

    3) Trump shares in this debacle by not including the government in his negotiations with the Taliban, and, by not supporting the legitimate government of Afghanistan, and by drawing down troops. And since there are at least 40 million Taliban males, Bush and Obama share in it too. This is what happens when you overthrow governments and attempt to do nation building in cultures where you do not belong! This is what happens when you train a Bin Laden type to fight Russia in a proxy war and then do not deprogram such people after the fight is over. This is what happens when you have faulty foreign policy that puts US economics concerns over the concerns of people, when you allow corporations to infect foreign governments. All of these things create hostilities that ultimately end up in a 9/11 type of event!

    Reply
  4. Ron C

    From what I’m reading from these commits, everyone has no idea what they are bloviating, the Bidens/Harris administration tore up Trumps withdrawal plan, and the disaster they brought to the world continues to make everybody’s life miserable! You TDS suffers live in fantasyland.

    Reply
  5. frank stetson

    RC: there was no Trump withdrawal plan. How exactly is our leaving Afghanistan making your life miserable. I see little effect. Vietnam was a messier withdrawal for a shorter war and while no American died, the frenzied retreat with folks hanging from copters was a pretty awful affair. On the day of our surrender, William Nolde died from missile fire and became a final footnote in the war. The left did not blame Nixon for his death, we did not take photo op’s at his grave for our campaign.

    I do not see the Taliban sponsoring or conducting terrorist acts.

    ISIS, you know, the one Trump said he defeated, is the largest terrorist group in the world. Mission accomplished!

    I have not a clue what you are whining about.

    Reply
  6. Darren

    Biden was the Man! Biden was going to save everyone!
    Biden know how to run a government way better than Trump.
    Biden is this nations salvation!
    Biden is going to correct everything in the world.
    Biden’s policy’s are going to keep us and everyone else out of war.
    You Same Ass Holes have the gall to condemn Trump!
    Now its Biden Who!
    Go ahead and vote for someone YOU did not ask for!
    Feeling Communistic yet?

    Reply
    • Mike f

      Darren-perhaps it was unwise to have those last 5 vodka tonics before you wrote this response. If you said anything other than indicating you prefer trump to Biden, that is totally unclear from your writing…

      Reply
      • Darren

        It is called Sarcasm!

        Reply
  7. Americafirst

    What’s the difference in what those evil Muslims do compared to some of the commentors here that also hate women?

    Reply
  8. frank stetson

    A: which commentors and do you have examples? I know a lot of folks here call females of the opposing party CUNTS, is that the folks you mean? These are mostly conservatives, just like you seem to be.

    I know Tom is spoofing your gender, but that’s not exactly hating women or being like an evil Muslim?

    You got more?

    Reply
  9. AC

    Alice, your reporting is moving in your depiction of what appears deplorable for women in Afghanistan.
    In fact conditions women are made to endure at the will of powerful men beating the drum of religion and drowning out the women’s cries of despair.
    It is well for us in the U.S. that the women of Afghanistan have their story be heard. Those of us, men and women, who hate injustice in whatever form it is revealed. We have to have eyes to see the injustices that are being perpetuated on women by the state in this country deserves contempt from men who create and administer discriminatory laws.
    We may point our fingers in judgement on the Afghanistan religious regime, as the world with the UN has been doing, and the Afghans’ injustice should end. However, women of every age, and too many men and boys in our own country experience unjust treatment from society, religious organizations, people known to them, and family.
    Abortion rights a.k.a every woman’s right to choose what is best and humane for themselves, their partner/spouse/other person, and their family has personal significance so deep in the person’s soul that giving of that choice must be an absolute right for every women.
    This being said, in my own heart I know what I would aid and counsel a woman with an unplanned pregnancy who considers abortion. My first words would be offered in support no matter what her decision. My second comment would encourage the woman to carry the fetus to full term and offer any assistance she required through her pregnancy, delivery, and after.
    My belief is that a woman must have every assurance that she may choose abortion without reprisal from governmental authorities .
    , it would be my greatest hope and prayer for the woman and her future child that she would choose life for her unborn child. My thinking on this issue may seem to some as ideologically impossible. One cannot believe I am sane when I admit my disgust for the practice of abortion and think it is wrong but contradict myself when I support the right every woman should have to choose for herself.
    The reason should have the the right to choose as I believe when my choice’s consequences are managed by my family and me. At the same time I believe that every woman whose beliefs on abortion happen to be the exact opposite of mine, she, also, should be given the opportunity of choice, abortion being her choice.
    It is not my right to interfere in a woman’s life choice for her own body and her decision about her future welfare. Neither is it government’s right to become involved in a woman’s choice in her decisions about her body, particularly in the case of pregnancy
    Morality one way or the other, in this instance, can not be legislated.
    In Afghanistan, the powers that be in government and in religious orders with the power of law, see they have the right and control in their society to demand for women as the rulers see fit. The world can lament but it will not change the situation there.
    In America (U.S) we are guaranteed certain rights and expect we will not be limited by government rule our exercise of those rights.

    Reply

Leave a reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *