HONG KONG: The Taliban authorities that rule Afghanistan have imposed a severe interpretation of Islamic law on the population, heavily restricting all aspects of women’s lives.
This week, the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor said he was seeking arrest warrants against senior Taliban leaders over the persecution of women, a crime against humanity.
The government claims it secures Afghan women’s rights under Sharia law, but many of the edicts are not followed in the rest of the Islamic world and have been condemned by Muslim leaders.
The United Nations has called it a “gender apartheid,” and no country has formally recognized the government since they swept to power in a lightning but largely bloodless military offensive in 2021.
Taliban authorities banned girls from public secondary classes at the start of the new school year in 2022.
A year later, universities were also closed to women.
The last options for education — midwifery and nursing — were banned from teaching women late last year.
Afghanistan is the only country in the world where girls and women are barred from education and the move has been widely criticized by Muslim leaders — including the Saudi-based Muslim World League.
Taliban authorities have made it increasingly difficult for women to work in a bid to keep them segregated from men.
While they held positions throughout the civil service of the foreign-backed government ousted by Taliban insurgents, women have been mostly been fired, forced to stay home, and have had their pay slashed.
Officially, women can no longer work for NGOs and the United Nations apart from in education and health, although the ban has not been strictly enforced.
Women are allowed to work from home or in women-majority businesses, such as textiles.
Private businesses can employ women, but in offices that are supposed to be segregated.
In cities, where women once generally already wore modest clothing and headscarves, huge billboards and posters on shop windows order them to cover their hair, faces and their bodies with a long cloak and face mask.
Women rarely appear on television, and many journalists have been pushed off screen.
They are banned from public spaces such as parks and gyms, while baths and salons have been closed down.
Women traveling long distances must be accompanied by a male chaperone.
In one of the latest orders, women cannot sing or recite poetry in public, and their voices and bodies must be “concealed” outside the home.
The Ministry of Women’s Affairs was shut down and their offices taken over by the Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, the Taliban authority’s morality police.
With severe interpretation of Islamic law, Taliban restrict women’s lives in Afghanistan
https://arab.news/jc3vq
With severe interpretation of Islamic law, Taliban restrict women’s lives in Afghanistan
- Many Taliban edicts are not followed in rest of Islamic world and have been condemned by Muslim leaders
- Taliban first banned girls from public secondary classes in 2022 followed by universities the next year
Liverpool parade driver jailed for 21-and-a-half years for using car as ‘weapon’ to plow into crowds of fans
- Paul Doyle drove into the mass of fans simply because he lost his temper, prosecutors said
- His lawyer Simon Csoka told the court: “The defendant is horrified by what he did ... he is remorseful”
LONDON: A British man who injured more than 130 people by plowing his car into a crowd of Liverpool soccer fans during May’s Premier League victory parade was jailed for 21-and-a-half years on Tuesday, after admitting 31 criminal charges over the incident.
Paul Doyle drove into the mass of fans – hitting adults and children, who bounced off his vehicle or were dragged underneath it – simply because he lost his temper, prosecutors said.
The 54-year-old last month pleaded guilty to charges including nine counts of causing grievous bodily harm with intent and 17 counts of attempting to cause grievous bodily harm, on what would have been the first day of his trial.
Prosecutor Paul Greaney on Monday said Doyle was “a man in a rage whose anger had completely taken hold of him” when he deliberately drove at jubilant fans, injuring 134 people including eight children.
“He not only caused injury on a large scale, but he also generated horror in those who had attended what they had thought would be a day of joyfulness,” Greaney said.
His lawyer Simon Csoka told the court: “The defendant is horrified by what he did ... he is remorseful, ashamed and deeply sorry for all those who were hurt or suffered.”
Doyle sat in the dock at Liverpool Crown Court as Judge Andrew Menary said: “It is almost impossible to comprehend how any right-thinking person could act as you did.
“To drive a vehicle into crowds of pedestrians with such persistence and disregard for human life defies ordinary understanding.”
UKRAINIAN SAYS SHE LOST SAFETY AGAIN
Greaney told the court on Monday that around a million people had come out to celebrate Liverpool’s 20th English league title, watching an open-top bus parade featuring the team and its staff with the Premier League trophy.
Doyle drove into the city center to pick up friends who had been to the parade before – in the space of 77 seconds at nearly 6 p.m. – he plowed into the crowd while shouting, swearing and beeping his horn as he repeatedly struck pedestrians.
One of Doyle’s victims was Anna Bilonozhenko, who was struck by his Ford Galaxy and required surgery for a fractured knee, had left Ukraine for Britain in 2024.
“We came to this country because of the war in our homeland, hoping to finally feel safe,” she said in a statement read on her behalf. “At first, we did but now that feeling has been taken away ... it feels like losing our safety all over again.”
Others who were caught up in the incident described the long-term effects on themselves and their loved ones, saying they were unable to work, care for their families, be in crowded places or watch Liverpool.
