Afghan women to cover faces, and men to grow beards.
Taliban Enacts Strict Morality Laws
This week, the Afghan Taliban officially codified a long set of strict morality rules. The Justice Ministry confirmed these laws require women to cover their faces and men to grow beards. Additionally, the new laws ban car drivers from playing music. The morality ministry will enforce these rules, which align with Islamic Sharia law.
The Taliban’s supreme spiritual leader
first issued these rules in 2022. Now, the Justice Ministry has formally published them as law. Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021, their restrictions on women and freedom of expression have faced severe criticism. Rights groups and foreign governments have condemned these policies. A Kabul housewife, Halema, expressed concern, stating, “Day by day, they are trying to erase women from society.” She also blamed the international community’s silence for encouraging the Taliban to impose even more restrictions.
International Pushback
Western nations, led by the United States, have repeatedly called for the Taliban to reverse these oppressive measures. They insist that the Taliban must restore women’s rights and reopen high schools for girls. However, the Taliban maintain that their rules align with Islamic law and local customs. They argue that these are internal matters to be addressed locally.
New Morality Law in Detail
The newly enacted morality law, comprising 35 articles, received approval from Supreme Spiritual Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada. Justice Ministry spokesperson Barakatullah Rasoli announced the law’s official publication on Wednesday. The ministry’s statement emphasized its duty to promote good and prevent evil under Islamic Sharia.
The law mandates that women wear clothing that fully covers their bodies and faces. Men must grow beards, refrain from shaving, and perform religious duties such as prayer and fasting.
Penalties for violations included
“advice, warnings of divine punishment, verbal threats, confiscation of property, detention for one hour to three days in public jails, and any other punishment deemed appropriate”, the Justice Ministry added. The laws also instruct drivers of vehicles not to transport women without a male guardian. They require the media to abide by Sharia law and ban the publication of images containing living beings.
Morality ministry officials have been monitoring Afghans throughout the country for alleged offences for the past three years.
The ministry said this week that in the past year, it had detained over 13,000 people, though it did not break down the alleged offences or gender of the detainees.
It said around half of the detentions were for 24 hours.
Afghanistan’s previous constitution
The Taliban suspended Afghanistan’s previous constitution when they took over in 2021 as foreign forces withdrew, and said they would rule the country according to Sharia law.
This week’s morality laws were the seventh set of codified laws, according to the Justice Ministry, with others relating to property, financial services and the prevention of begging.