Afghan Taliban orders women to cover up from head to toe

KABUL, Afghanistan (AFP) – Afghan Taliban rulers on Saturday ordered all Afghan women to dress head-to-toe in public – a sharp, hard-line stance that underscored rights activists’ worst fears and was bound to further complicate Taliban dealings. With an international community that does not really trust him.

The decree, which calls on women to show only their eyes and recommends that they wear a burqa from head to toe, raised similar restrictions on women during the previous Taliban rule between 1996 and 2001.

“We want our sisters to live in dignity and safety,” said Khaled Hanafi, acting minister in the Taliban’s Ministry of Vice and Virtue.

The Taliban had previously decided not to reopen schools for girls above grade six, reneging on an earlier promise and choosing to mollify their hardline base at the cost of further alienating the international community.

This decision has derailed the Taliban’s efforts to win recognition from potential international donors at a time when the country is mired in a deepening humanitarian crisis.

Sher Muhammad, an official from the Ministry of Vice and Virtue said in a statement.

He said, “Women who are not old or young should cover their faces except for the eyes.”

The decree added that if a woman does not have an important job abroad, it is better for her to stay at home. “Islamic principles and Islamic ideology are more important to us than anything else,” Hanafi said.

Afghan researcher Heather Barr of Human Rights Watch urged the international community to put concerted pressure on the Taliban.

“It is time for a serious and strategic response to the Taliban’s escalating assault on women’s rights,” she wrote on Twitter.

A US-led coalition toppled the Taliban in 2001 for harboring al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and returned to power after America’s chaotic departure last year.

Since taking power last August, the Taliban leadership has been squabbling among themselves as they struggle to transition from war to rule. He has a hard-line pit against those who are more pragmatic among them.

What infuriates many Afghans is knowing that many Taliban members of the younger generation, such as Sirajuddin Haqqani, educate their girls in Pakistan, while in Afghanistan, women and girls have been targeted by repressive edicts since they took power.

Girls have been banned from going to school after grade six in most parts of the country since the return of the Taliban. Universities opened earlier this year in most parts of the country, but since taking power, Taliban ordinances have been erratic. While a few provinces continued to provide education for all, most provinces closed educational institutions for girls and women.

Hashemi said the religiously oriented Taliban administration fears that moving forward with enrolling girls beyond sixth grade might alienate their rural base.

In the capital, Kabul, private schools and universities operate without interruption.