KABUL: Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities said Monday a recently ratified morality law would be enforced “gently,” after the international community and Afghans voiced concern over new restrictions.
Women must cover completely and not raise their voices in public, according to a 35-article law announced Wednesday by the justice ministry.
It imposes wide-ranging stipulations from behavior to dress and social interactions, including rules on men’s clothing and beard length as well as bans on homosexuality, animal fighting, playing music in public and non-Muslim holidays.
The United Nations, rights groups and Afghans have expressed concern that the law could lead to increased enforcement of rules on behavior and lifestyle, many already informally in place since the Taliban authorities took power in 2021 and implemented a strict interpretation of Islamic law — or sharia.
“I must make it clear that force and oppression won’t be used while implementing these rules,” said deputy government spokesman Hamdullah Fitrat in a voice message shared with AFP.
The rules “would be implemented very gently, informing people’s understanding, and guiding them,” he said.
The European Union added its voice to the chorus on Monday, saying it was “appalled” by a decree that “confirms and extends severe restrictions on the life of Afghans.”
“This latest decision is another serious blow undermining the rights of Afghan women and girls, which we cannot tolerate,” said a statement from EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell.
Borrell urged the Taliban to put an end to such “systematic and systemic abuses against Afghan women and girls,” warning they may amount to gender persecution — a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
The Taliban government has consistently dismissed international criticism of their policies, including condemnation of restrictions on women the UN has labelled “gender apartheid.”
The law sets out graduated punishments for non-compliance — from verbal warnings to threats, fines and detentions of varying lengths — enforced by the morality police under the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.
Roza Otunbayeva, head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, has called the law a “distressing vision for Afghanistan’s future, where moral inspectors have discretionary powers to threaten and detain anyone based on broad and sometimes vague lists of infractions.”
Afghanistan’s Taliban government says morality law will be ‘gently’ enforced
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Afghanistan’s Taliban government says morality law will be ‘gently’ enforced
- Borrell urged the Taliban to put an end to such “systematic and systemic abuses against Afghan women and girls“
More than 9,000 flights canceled as major winter storm bears down across much of US
- “Dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills are spreading into the area and will remain in place into Monday,” the agency said on X
DALLAS: More than 9,000 flights across the US set to take off over the weekend have been canceled as a major storm expected to wreak havoc across much of the country threatens to knock out power for days and snarl major roadways.
Roughly 140 million people were under a winter storm warning from New Mexico to New England.
The National Weather Service forecast warns of widespread heavy snow and a band of catastrophic ice stretching from east Texas to North Carolina.
Forecasters say damage, especially in areas pounded by ice, could rival that of a hurricane.
Ice and sleet that hit northern Texas overnight were moving toward the central part of the state on Saturday, the National Weather Service in Fort Worth said.
“Dangerously cold temperatures and wind chills are spreading into the area and will remain in place into Monday,” the agency said on X.
Low temperatures will be mostly in the single digits for the next few nights, with wind chills as low as minus 24 Celsius.
About 68,000 power outages were reported across the country at 8 a.m. ET, about 27,600 of them in Texas. Snow and sleet continued to fall in Oklahoma.
After sweeping through the South, the storm was expected to move into the Northeast, dumping about a foot of snow from Washington through New York and Boston, the weather service predicted.
Temperatures reached minus 34 C just before dawn in rural Lewis County and other parts of upstate New York after days of heavy snow.
Governors in more than a dozen states sounded the alarm about the turbulent weather ahead, declaring emergencies or urging people to stay home.
