The Taliban Stress Girls in Afghanistan to Cowl Up

KABUL, Afghanistan — Her mom begged her to not go to the protest, at the same time as Maryam Hassanzada was on her manner out the door.

However Ms. Hassanzada, 24, reassured her mom, then joined a dozen different ladies protesting a Taliban decree this month requiring Afghan ladies to cowl themselves from head to toe.

Their faces uncovered, the ladies chanted “Justice! Justice!” and “Cease tyranny towards ladies!” They protested for about 10 minutes earlier than Taliban gunmen roughly broke up the demonstration. The protesters stated they have been held by Taliban safety officers for 2 hours, questioned and berated, then launched with a warning to not protest once more.

Ms. Hassanzada was unbowed.

“If we don’t protest, the world received’t know the way badly Afghan ladies are oppressed,” she stated later.

These are perilous instances for Afghan ladies. The Taliban present no signal of easing a crackdown not solely on such fundamental rights as training and jobs for ladies, however on each aspect of public life, from deportment to journey.

The quilt-up decree, which additionally urged ladies to remain dwelling except that they had a compelling cause to exit, adopted a earlier rule requiring ladies who journey greater than about 45 miles from their properties to be accompanied by a male family member.

In August, the Taliban promised much less restrictive insurance policies towards ladies than throughout their earlier rule within the late Nineteen Nineties. “There might be no violence towards ladies, no prejudice towards ladies,” the Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid advised reporters.

As a substitute, in a matter of months, the Taliban have imposed onerous decrees which have dragged ladies from the relative freedoms achieved over the previous 20 years to a harsh interpretation of Islamic regulation that smothers ladies’s rights.

On the streets of the capital, compliance with the decree is blended.

Within the Dasht-e-Barchi district, dwelling to Hazaras, a predominantly Shiite Muslim minority, only a few ladies cowl their faces — aside from surgical masks for Covid-19. However in close by Karte Naw, an ethnic Pashtun space, a part of the Sunni majority, most ladies put on hijabs, or head scarves, that cowl their faces.

Some ladies in Kabul stated that males on the road had harassed and berated them after they appeared in public with their faces uncovered.

Outdoors the capital, most ladies appear to be obeying the decree. Throughout the nation, ladies say that Taliban enforcers have accosted them, typically violently, and ordered them to cowl up.

Within the northern province of Takhar, Farahnaz, a college scholar, stated the non secular police had arrange checkpoints to examine rickshaws carrying ladies to class. Those that weren’t coated in all-black hijabs have been roughed up and despatched dwelling, she stated.

“I had a coloured head scarf however they despatched me again dwelling and stated I needed to put on a black hijab and niqab,” she stated, referring to a garment that covers the hair and face aside from the eyes. She requested to be recognized by solely her first identify for worry of retribution.

Anisa Mohammadi, 28, a lawyer in Mazar-i-Sharif in northern Afghanistan, stated she had purchased a burqa as a result of she feared that her honor can be questioned if she didn’t put on it. She stated the non secular police there have been intently monitoring ladies and ordering them to cowl up.

In Baghlan Province, additionally in northern Afghanistan, Maryam, 25, a ladies’s rights activist who has refused to cowl her face, stated {that a} buddy had been warned that she can be flogged if she continued to put on solely a head scarf.

“I’m scared,” stated Maryam, who requested that her final identify not be revealed. “The Taliban advised me that I’d higher not come to town once more if my face is just not coated.”

In Kabul, a 24-year-old college scholar who wore a head scarf however no face masking to a well-liked recreation space stated that she had been struck on the pinnacle by a rifle butt wielded by a passing Taliban gunman who shouted at her to cowl her face.

Taliban gunmen have pointed weapons at feminine protesters, sprayed them with pepper spray and known as them “whores” and “puppets of the West,” Human Rights Watch has stated.

Native information media reported that some feminine college students at Kabul College had been despatched dwelling by Taliban enforcers for not complying with the hijab decree. And Human Rights Watch reported that the Taliban non secular police tried to compel Afghan women working for the United Nations mission in Kabul to cowl up.

Muhammad Sadiq Akif, spokesman for the Advantage and Vice Ministry in Kabul, denied that any ladies had been accosted or punished. He stated that ministry patrols had not pressured ladies to cowl themselves however had merely defined the decree to encourage full compliance.

And he denied that ladies had been compelled to put on black hijabs, saying that they might put on hijabs of any colour.

“Out of respect for the sisters of our nation, we don’t cease, summon or punish any ladies,” he stated in an interview on the ministry, which has changed the earlier authorities’s Ministry for Girls’s Affairs.

“The hijab is the command of God and should be noticed,” Mr. Akif stated, including that the regulation for ladies was “for their very own safety.”

The decree, ordered by the Taliban’s supreme chief, Haibatullah Akhundzada, mandated a collection of escalating punishments, together with jail time, for male kinfolk of girls who repeatedly refused to cowl themselves. Mr. Akif stated that some males had been formally warned, however not punished.

That strain was denounced by some ladies. “My father and brothers shouldn’t have an issue with me,” stated Mozhda, 25, a ladies’s rights activist in Mazar-i-Sharif who has refused to cowl her face and requested to be recognized by solely her first identify for worry of retribution.

Till the takeover final summer season, the Taliban had been out of energy for 20 years, and many ladies, particularly in cities, grew to become accustomed to the extra relaxed mores.

“Girls now are usually not like the ladies of 20 years in the past, and the Taliban ought to perceive that,” stated Fatima Farahi, 55, a ladies’s rights activist in Herat, in western Afghanistan.

Ms. Farahi stated that she and plenty of different ladies in Herat had refused to cowl their faces. To this point, she stated, she and her colleagues had not been threatened by the Taliban.

In Kabul, the protesters, who name themselves the Afghanistan Highly effective Girls’s Motion, vowed to proceed to protest and to make use of social media to induce ladies to defy the decree.

When Taliban gunmen ordered them to cease a current rally, a protest chief, Munisa Mubariz, shouted: “You can’t cease our voices!”

The ladies stated they have been warned that they might be jailed for 5 days in the event that they protested once more.

5 Western journalists and two Afghan reporters who have been reporting on the demonstration have been additionally held and questioned for 2 hours, individually from the ladies, and later launched unhurt.

Mr. Akif of the Advantage and Vice Ministry stated that the ladies who protested had made a mistake, and “got the fitting understanding” of the decree by Taliban officers.

“It isn’t permissible to face or protest towards any sort of Islamic ruling and it’s thought of a criminal offense,” he stated. “In the event that they perceive and the fitting manner is proven for them, they are going to by no means do these items. I’m certain they are going to comply.”

No manner, stated Zakia Zahadat, one of many protesters.

“I’ll be again — I received’t cease protesting,” Ms. Zahadat, 24, stated. “We’re dealing with an financial disaster, a social disaster and a political disaster, however the Taliban solely care concerning the hijab? Does this imply if we put on a hijab all our issues might be solved?”

Jamila Barati, 25, one other protester, stated, “Girls should struggle for his or her rights, regardless of the dangers. I received’t cease protesting.”

A number of ladies stated that their husbands or dad and mom had begged them to cease. The ladies stated that that they had obtained threatening telephone calls from Taliban safety officers. Some stated that they moved from home to deal with to keep away from detection.

Ms. Hassanzada stated that her mom had requested her to remain indoors always.

However, Ms. Hassanzada stated, she spent most of her time at dwelling anyway because the Taliban fired her from her job at a authorities ministry. After she returned dwelling safely the day of the latest protest, she stated, she repeated a promise she had made to her mom.

“I stated I might by no means go away the home — besides to protest,” she stated.

Najim Rahim contributed reporting from Houston, and Safiullah Padshah and Kiana Hayeri from Kabul.