KABUL — About a dozen women protested in the
Afghan capital on Tuesday against the Taliban’s new edict that females must
fully cover their faces and bodies when in public.
اضافة اعلان
Afghanistan’s supreme leader and
Taliban chief Hibatullah Akhundzada issued a mandate over the weekend ordering women to cover
up fully, ideally with the traditional all-covering burqa.
The diktat was
the latest in a series of creeping restrictions in Afghanistan, where the
Islamists have rolled back the marginal gains made by women after a US-led
invasion toppled the first Taliban regime in 2001.
“Justice, justice!” chanted the protestors, many
with uncovered faces, in central Kabul.
The demonstrators also chanted “Burqa is not our
hijab!” — indicating their objection to trading the less restrictive hijab
headscarf for the totally concealing burqa.
After a short procession, the march was halted by
Taliban fighters, who also obstructed journalists from reporting on the event.
Akhundzada’s decree, which also orders women to
“stay at home” if they have no important work outside, has triggered
international condemnation.
“We want to live
as human beings, not as some animal held captive in a corner of a house,”
protester Saira Sama Alimyar said at the rally.
Akhundzada also ordered authorities to fire female
government employees who do not follow the new dresscode, and to suspend male
workers if their wives and daughters fail to comply.
In the 20 years between the Taliban’s two stints in
power, women made some gains in education, the workplace, and public life but
deeply conservative and patriarchal attitudes still prevailed.
In the countryside, many women continued to wear the
burqa in those two decades.
But several religious scholars and activists say the
attire has no basis in Islam and is rather a Taliban dress code designed to
repress women.
After seizing
power last year, the Taliban had promised a softer version of the harsh
Islamist rule that characterized their first stint in power from 1996 to 2001,
but many restrictions have already been imposed.
Some Afghan women initially pushed back against the
curbs, holding small protests where they demanded the right to education and
work.
But the Taliban soon rounded up the ringleaders,
holding them incommunicado while denying that they had been detained.
Since their release, most have gone silent.
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