The Taliban will use security forces to prevent women from visiting one of Afghanistan’s most popular national parks, according to information provided by a spokesman for the Ministry of Vice and Virtues.
The ministry alleges that the women have not respected the correct way of wearing the hijab, or Islamic headscarf, when they go to Band-e-Amir, in the central province of Bamyan.
This comes a week after the minister, Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, visited the province and informed religious officials and clerics that women have not respected the proper way of wearing the hijab, asking security personnel to prevent women from visiting. the tourist place. “Sightseeing is not an obligation for women,” Hanafi said at the time.
Ministry spokesman Molvi Mohammad Sadiq Akif shared a report on Hanafi’s statements on Saturday night, which included the use of security forces, clerics and elders to carry out the Hanafi order. A recording of the minister’s speech in Bamyan, which coincides with Akif’s report, was shared on social media.
“Not content with depriving girls and women of education, jobs and free movement, the Taliban also want to take away parks and sports and now even nature, as we see in this latest ban on women visiting Band- e-Amir,” Heather Barr, associate director for women’s rights at Human Rights Watch, said in an emailed statement. “Step by step, the walls close in on women as every home becomes a prison.”
Last November, the Talbian-led government barred women from using public spaces, including parks, on the grounds that they were not wearing the hijab correctly or not following gender segregation rules.
Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, wondered why preventing women from visiting Band-e-Amir “is necessary to comply with Sharia and Afghan culture.”
