KABUL: Women in Afghanistan expressed defiance after the Taliban issued a directive ordering them to cover fully in public, including their faces, or stay indoors, saying the change would effectively leave them “imprisoned”.
Afghanistan’s supreme leader and Taliban chief Hibatullah Akhundzada approved the order on Saturday in a move that threatens to push freedoms back toward the harsh rule imposed by the Islamists when they previously held power between 1996-2001.
It also goes against promises about a softer rule made to the international community after the Taliban took power in August last year.
“I am being imprisoned. I can’t live in freedom and all my social life is being controlled by the Taliban,” activist Tahmina Taham, a former government employee who lost her job after the Taliban stormed back to power last year, told AFP.
“Forget about being a woman, I have been stripped of my liberties even as a human being.”
Akhundzada’s decree also specified that women working in government jobs who did not follow the order “should be fired” and that employees whose wives and daughters do not comply will also be suspended from their jobs.
The United Nations mission in Afghanistan condemned the decree and said it might further “strain engagement” between the Islamists and the international community, which has tied the resumption of aid to Afghanistan’s economy and the recognition of the Taliban government to their ability to respect women’s rights.
There were no immediate signs of Akhundzada’s order being followed in Kabul on Sunday, with many women seen on the streets without covering their faces.
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