Girls are banned from going to school beyond sixth grade, women are barred from boarding a plane if they travel with a male relative. Men and women can only go to public parks on different days and the use of mobile telephones is prohibited in universities.
It doesn’t stop there.
International media broadcasts – including Pashto and Persian BBC services which broadcast in Afghanistan’s two languages - are closed as of the weekend. So are foreign drama series.
Since the Taliban took control of the country in mid-August, during the last chaotic weeks of the US and NATO withdrawal after a 20-year war, the international community has worried they would impose the same strict laws they had previously. ruled Afghanistan.
The latest attack on women’s rights came earlier this month, when the all-male and religiously-run Taliban government broke its promise to allow girls to return to school after sixth grade. The move shocked much of the world – and many in Afghanistan – especially after the Taliban gave all “necessary assurances” that this was not going to happen.
The United Nations has called the ban on international media broadcasts “another repressive move against the people of Afghanistan”. The BBC Pashto service’s website said it was “a worrying development in a time of uncertainty and unrest.”
“More than six million Afghans consume BBC’s free and unbiased journalism on TV every week and it is important that they are not denied access to it in the future,” Tariq Kafla, head of languages for BBC World Services, said in a statement on Sunday. Let’s do.”
On Monday, Taliban vice presidents and members of the Ministry of Virtue stood outside government ministries, ordering male employees without traditional turbans and beards to go home – seen as a symbol of purity. An employee who was asked to go home said he did not know if and when he would be able to return to work. He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of his own safety.
According to a senior Taliban official and Afghans familiar with the Taliban’s leadership, the push to return to the past – the resulting inscription – emerged from a three-day meeting last week in the southern city of Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban.
They say the order stems from the demands of Haibatullah Akhundzada, a hardline Taliban leader, who is apparently trying to bring the country back to the late 1990s, when the Taliban banned women’s education and public places. and the music was outlawed. television and many sports.
“Taliban youth do not agree with some of these orders, but they are not comfortable contradicting elders,” said Torek Farhadi, an analyst who served as an adviser to previous Afghan governments. Farhadi, who has been in contact with Taliban officials since his return to power, did not elaborate.
Farhadi said that as many as are pragmatic among the Taliban, they are resisting these orders – or at least silently ignoring them.
Since its takeover of the country, the Taliban has been trying to transition from extremism and war to rule, with hardliners rushing to steer a country in the midst of a humanitarian crisis and liberate an economy. falling over obstacles.
The leadership of the Taliban today differs from the one-man regime of Mullah Mohammad Omar, the reclusive founder of the Taliban movement in the mid-1990s, who ruled with a heavy hand. There is a growing divide between some within the old guard, who maintain the harsh regime of the past, and a younger generation of Taliban leaders who see a future for engagement with the international community.
The younger generation sees rights for both men and women, though still within their interpretation of Islamic law – but one that allows school for girls and women in the workforce.
“The young Taliban need to speak up,” Farhadi said.
Nevertheless, Akhundzada has modeled herself. Mullah UmriThey prefer to live in remote Kandahar, away from the public eye, rather than rule from Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. He also follows Pashtun tribal customs – traditions where women are kept in hiding and girls are married off at a young age.
Before emerging as the new Taliban leader in 2016, Akhunzada ran a madrassa, or a religious school, in the border areas of Pakistan. Those who knew Akhunzada say he is not concerned about international outrage over the Taliban’s latest restrictive orders and growing discontent and grievances from Afghans, who have become increasingly vocal.
It was Akhunzada who reportedly vetoed the opening of schools for girls after sixth grade, as promised by the Taliban in late March, at the start of the new school year. Dozens of girls demonstrated in Kabul on Saturday demanding the right to go to school.
Elsewhere ethnic Pashtuns have opposed the Taliban’s adherence to tribal laws. In Pakistan, where ethnic Pashtuns also dominate the border areas, movements such as the Pashtun Rights Movement have emerged to challenge backward tribal traditions and reject Taliban interpretations of Islamic law.
Manzoor Pashtin, the leader of the movement, has been a vocal opponent and has accused the Taliban of hijacking ethnic Pashtun sentiments and misrepresenting their traditions and misinterpreting them as religious orders.
Akhunzada’s attack against progress comes at a time when the health of a radical, Hassan Akhund, the Taliban-appointed prime minister, is reported to be deteriorating. Akhund did not meet the Foreign Minister of China wang yi Last week, when the top Chinese diplomat made a surprise one-day visit to Kabul.
Farhadi hopes that younger, more pragmatic Taliban leaders will find their voices and urged them to be approached by Islamic countries and scholars, as well as Afghan scholars and political figures.
“The Taliban movement needs reform,” Farhadi said. “It’s slow to come and it’s frustrating for everyone involved. But we shouldn’t give up.”