KABUL: Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada has ordered Afghan authorities to enact a sweeping new morality law that would restrict women's rights and enshrine his own austere vision of Islamic society.
Taliban authorities announced the law last month, which includes rules stating that women's faces, bodies and voices must be “covered” outside the home, among 35 articles that dictate behavior and lifestyle.
While many of the measures have been implemented informally since the Taliban took power in 2021, their formal codification sparked outrage from the international community and human rights groups.
Akhundzada told civil and military officials “should implement… the law on promoting virtue in society,” according to a statement from the Information and Culture Department of Faryab province.
The reclusive Akhundzada rules by decree from a hideout in the southern province of Kandahar, but gave the order on a rare trip north to Faryab last week, according to the statement released Sunday.
The new law prohibits women from raising their voices in public and requires them to cover their entire body and face if they need to leave their homes, which they can only do “out of necessity.”
The conduct and dress of men are also strictly regulated by the edict, which orders them not to wear shorts above the knee or to trim their beards closely.
Other parts of the law dictate attendance at prayers, as well as a ban on keeping photographs of living beings, homosexuality, animal fights, playing music in public and non-Muslim holidays.
The law establishes graduated punishments that the morality police are empowered to apply, from verbal warnings to threats, fines and detentions of varying lengths.
The head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva, called the law a “worrying vision for the future of Afghanistan.”
Akhundzada was in Faryab on Friday after visiting Badghis province on his first official visit to northern Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover, said the head of Faryab's Information and Culture Department, Shamsullah Mohammadi. AFP.
