Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations, New York, Parvathaneni Harish. File photo: Youtube/@IndiaatUnitedNations

Army soldiers walk, after suicide bombers targeted the headquarters of a Pakistani paramilitary force in Peshawar, Pakistan. File
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“This morning, a man convicted of serious crimes was deported to Kabul – the first deportation to Afghanistan since 2021,” Chancellor Christian Stocker of the conservative Austrian People’s Party wrote on X.
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The outage, reported the previous day, was the first nationwide shutdown since the Taliban returned to power in August 2021 and was part of their professed crackdown on immorality. File.
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The Taliban’s restrictions on women and freedom of expression have drawn sharp criticism from rights groups and many foreign Governments since the former insurgents resumed control of Afghanistan in 2021.
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“Afghanistan’s Taliban formally codified a long set of rules governing morality this week, ranging from requiring women to cover their faces and men to grow beards to banning car drivers from playing music,” the Justice Ministry said.

“The rules, promoted as in line with Islamic sharia law and to be enforced by the Morality Ministry, were based on a decree by the Taliban’s supreme spiritual leader in 2022 and are now officially published as law,” a Justice Ministry spokesman said.

Also Read: Taliban may give more power to morality police

The Morality Ministry, formally called the Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and Propagation of Virtue, has already been enforcing similar morality requirements and says it has detained thousands of people for violations. It was not immediately clear whether publication of the rules would lead to stronger enforcement.

The Taliban’s restrictions on women and freedom of expression have drawn sharp criticism from rights groups and many foreign Governments since the former insurgents resumed control of Afghanistan in 2021.

“Day by day, they are trying to erase women from society,” said a 37-year-old housewife in Kabul. “The silence of the international community regarding the actions of the Taliban is encouraging them to create new laws and restrictions every day,” added the woman, identified just by her first name, Halema.

Western capitals, led by Washington, have said the path to formal recognition of the Taliban is largely stalled until they reverse course on women’s rights and open high schools to girls.

The Taliban say they respect women’s rights in accordance with their interpretation of Islamic law and local customs and that they are internal matters that should be addressed locally.

“The 35-article morality law was officially enacted and published on Wednesday after being ratified by Supreme Spiritual Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada,” said Justice Ministry spokesperson Barakatullah Rasoli.

“According to this law, the Ministry (for Prevention of Vice and Propagation of Virtue) is obligated to promote good and forbid evil in accordance with Islamic Sharia,” the Justice Ministry said in a statement.

The requirements include women to wear attire that fully covers their bodies and faces and bars men from shaving their beards as well as from skipping prayer and religious fasts.

Penalties for violations included “advice, warnings of divine punishment, verbal threats, confiscation of property, detention for one hour to three days in public jails, and any other punishment deemed appropriate,” the Justice Ministry added.

If such measures failed to correct an individual’s behaviour they would be referred to court for further action, it said.

“A lot of these rules were in place already but less formally and now they are being formalised I think this is a sign of what we’ve been seeing over the last three years which is a steady and gradual escalation of the crackdown,” said Heather Barr, Associate Director of Human Rights Watch’s Women’s Rights Division.

The laws also instruct drivers of vehicles not to transport women without a male guardian. They require media to abide by sharia law and ban the publication of images containing living beings.

Morality Ministry officials have been monitoring Afghans throughout the country for alleged offences for the past three years. The Ministry said this week that in the past year it had detained over 13,000 people, though it did not break down the alleged offences or gender of the detainees. It said around half of the detentions were for 24 hours.

The Taliban suspended Afghanistan’s previous constitution when they took over in 2021 as foreign forces withdrew, and said they would rule the country according to sharia law.

This week’s morality laws were the seventh set of codified laws, according to the Justice Ministry, with others relating to property, financial services and the prevention of begging.

A U.N. report says the Taliban are restricting Afghan women’s access to work, travel and healthcare if they are unmarried or don’t have a male guardian, a mahram. File
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The Taliban government’s morality police will play an increasing role in enforcing religious law in Afghanistan, according to a U.N. report published on July 9 that accused them of creating a “climate of fear”.

The report from the U.N. assistance mission in Afghanistan said the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice “had negative impacts on the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms… with a discriminatory and disproportionate impact on women”.

But the report also carried a response from Taliban authorities, who said the Vice Ministry had a bigger role to play.

Also Read | Taliban to press international community on Afghanistan sanctions

The Ministry implements an austere vision of Islam, which has increasingly dominated Afghanistan since the 2021 Taliban takeover.

Morality police squads are empowered to scold, arrest and deliver punishments to citizens violating edicts which have marginalised women, effectively banned music and outlawed other activity deemed un-Islamic.

The U.N. report said there was “a climate of fear and intimidation” owing to the Ministry’s invasion of Afghans’ private lives, ambiguity over its legal powers, and the “disproportionality of punishments”.

However, in their written response Taliban authorities said the Vice Ministry is “dedicated to promoting benefits and averting harm in all spheres of peoples’ lives”.

“Its official documents, as previously stated, draw from Sharia and Islamic law, and as a result, its role is growing as required by the situation.”

The U.N. report documents the work of the Vice Ministry between the Taliban’s return to power three years ago and March of this year.

It said the Taliban government had overseen a ban on women travelling without male escorts, enforced a conservative dress code on them, barred them from public parks and shut women-run businesses.

It also introduced “measures to reduce intermingling between men and women in daily life” — while instructing barbers to refuse “Western style” haircuts for men and arresting people playing music.

In their response, the Taliban government defended their decision to enforce male escorts for women, saying they are “to safeguard her honor and chastity” while Islamic dress was “a divine obligation”.

The Vice Ministry denied banning women from public places and said it only intervened in mixed-gender environments.

Under-Secretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo. File
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The United Nations (UN) political chief who will chair the first meeting between Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers and envoys from about 25 countries answered sharp criticism that Afghan women have been excluded, saying on June 26 that women’s rights will be raised at every session.

Undersecretary-General Rosemary DiCarlo stressed to a small group of reporters that the two-day meeting starting on Sunday is an initial engagement aimed at initiating a step-by-step process with the goal of seeing the Taliban “at peace with itself and its neighbours and adhering to international law,” the UN Charter and human rights.

This is the third UN meeting with Afghan envoys in Qatar’s capital, Doha, but the first that the Taliban are attending. They weren’t invited to the first and refused to attend the second. Other attendees include envoys from the European Union, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the United States, Russia, China and several of Afghanistan’s neighbours, DiCarlo said.

The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021 as United States and NATO forces withdrew following two decades of war. No country officially recognises them as Afghanistan’s government, and the UN has said that recognition is almost impossible while bans on female education and employment remain in place and women can’t go out without a male guardian.

When Ms. DiCarlo met with senior Taliban officials in Kabul in May, she said she made clear that the international community is concerned about four things: the lack of an inclusive government, the denial of human rights especially for women and girls, and the need to combat terrorism and the narcotics trade.

“The issue of inclusive governance, women’s rights, human rights writ large, will be a part of every single session,” she said. “This is important, and we will hear it again and again, I’m sure from quite a number of us.”

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International criticised the United Nations for not having Afghan women and civil society representatives at the table with the Taliban.

Ms. DiCarlo described the meeting as a process. “This is not an inter-Afghan dialogue,” she stressed. “I would hope we could get to that someday, but we’re not there.”

The Taliban’s Foreign Ministry on June 26 reiterated the concerns they want to raise — restrictions on Afghanistan’s financial and banking system, development of the private sector and countering drug trafficking. Ms. DiCarlo said they also raised Afghanistan’s vulnerability to climate change.

She said discussions on the first day of the Doha meeting on Sunday will focus on how the world would engage with the Taliban to achieve the objectives of peace and its adherence to international law and human rights.

The assessment calls for a step-by-step process, where each side would respond to actions taken by the other.

On the second day, the participants will discuss the private sector, including getting more women into the workforce through microfinance projects, as well as counter-narcotics efforts, such as alternative livelihoods and support for drug addicts, she said. “Hopefully, it will achieve some progress, but it will be slow,” Ms. DiCarlo said.

She stressed that the meeting isn’t about the Taliban and doesn’t signify any recognition of Afghan’s rulers as the country’s official government. “That’s not in the cards,” she said.

“This is about Afghanistan and the people and their need to feel a part of the international community and have the kinds of support and services and opportunities that others have — and they’re pretty blocked off right now,” Ms. DiCarlo said.

Before the meeting, the UN political chief met with the Afghan diaspora. After the meeting on Tuesday, she said the UN and the envoys will meet with civil society representatives including women, and private sector representatives mainly living in Afghanistan.

Cricket has surged in popularity inside Afghanistan in recent years, fuelled by triumphs over bigger nations on the international stage. File.
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Afghanistan cricket bosses on March 20 expressed disappointment that Australia had scrapped a men’s T20 series because of deteriorating women’s rights in the Taliban-ruled country and called for “politics-free cricket”.

Cricket Australia said it had received advice “that conditions for women and girls in Afghanistan are getting worse” and postponed the three-match series scheduled in August, likely to have been hosted by the UAE.

“The Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) expresses disappointment over Cricket Australia’s decision to postpone yet another bilateral series against Afghanistan and reiterates its stance on neutral and politics-free cricket across the globe,” said a statement.

The decision, announced Tuesday, was the third time since 2021, when the Taliban returned to power, that Australia have refused to play Afghanistan outside of international tournaments.

Cricket has surged in popularity inside Afghanistan in recent years, fuelled by triumphs over bigger nations on the international stage.

But under the Taliban government’s brand of Islamic rule, women are effectively barred from the game, as part of a raft of restrictions on women in Afghanistan the United Nations has labelled “gender apartheid”.

The ACB urged the Australian government “not to impose its policies on cricket boards” and “focus on supporting the development of cricket”.

“ACB advocates for keeping cricket distinct from political influence, considering the game’s significance in Afghanistan and its connection to the happiness and joy of the Afghan nation,” the board said.

Before the return of the Taliban, Afghanistan’s cricket board was slowly making progress growing the game among women — even contracting a small number of semi-professional players in 2020. Most of those eventually fled to Australia.

The Taliban have waged a systematic assault on the freedom of Afghanistan’s people, including women and girls experiencing “immeasurably cruel” oppression, the U.N.’s human rights chief said.
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The Taliban have waged a systematic assault on the freedom of Afghanistan’s people, including women and girls experiencing “immeasurably cruel” oppression, the U.N.’s human rights chief said on Tuesday.

United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk said that human rights are in a state of collapse in Afghanistan more than two years after the Taliban returned to power and stripped back institutional protections at all levels. He urged U.N. member states to help fill the void.

Also Read | Taliban say security forces will stop women from visiting Afghan national park

“The shocking level of oppression of Afghan women and girls is immeasurably cruel,” Mr. Turk said during a meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. “Afghanistan has set a devastating precedent as the only country in the world where women and girls are denied access to secondary and higher education.”

The Taliban regained control of Afghanistan on August 15, 2021, as U.S. and NATO forces withdrew from the country after more than two decades of war. They initially promised a more moderate approach than during they during their previous rule from 1996 to 2001 but gradually reimposed their harsh interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia.

Along with excluding girls and women from education beyond sixth grade, most forms of employment and many public spaces, the Taliban have harassed or beaten women at checkpoints for failing to wear a hijab, or Islamic headscarf, according to a report Turk presented to the Human Rights Council. They have ordered women to return home from markets for shopping without a male guardian.

With female lawyers and judges excluded from working or practicing law, women and girls have less ability to obtain legal representation and access to justice, the report stated.

The Taliban edicts have prompted an international outcry. But officials, including the supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, have told other countries to stop interfering in Afghanistan’s internal affairs.

Nobody from the Taliban was immediately available for comment on the U.N. report.