KABUL: Taliban leaders in Afghanistan have ordered fresh limitations on women, forbidding them from singing, reciting poetry or speaking aloud in public and mandating them to keep their faces and bodies covered at all times.
The restrictions are part of a new so-called Vice and Virtue decree published by the Taliban’s Justice Ministry on Wednesday after approval from their reclusive supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, said a ministry spokesman in a video message.
The 35-article document is the first formal declaration of the vice and virtue laws under the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Islamic Sharia law since they regained power in Afghanistan three years ago.
The decree greatly restricts personal freedoms and religious practices, covering aspects of everyday life such as transportation, music, shaving, celebrations, and women’s behavior and appearance in public.
The rules targeting female members of the Afghan society explained that a woman’s voice is deemed intimate and should not be heard singing, reciting poetry or reading aloud in public.
Women also are not allowed to look at men they are not related to by blood or marriage and vice versa.
Under the new law, females must cover their bodies and faces at all times in public to avoid temptation and to avoid tempting others. Their clothing should not be thin, short or tight, it emphasized.
(VOA)
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