The Taliban morality police in Afghanistan have detained men and their barbers over hairstyles and others for missing prayers at mosques during the holy month of Ramadan, a UN report said Thursday, six months after laws regulating people’s conduct came into effect.
The Vice and Virtue Ministry published laws last August covering many aspects everyday life in Afghanistan, including public transport, music, shaving and celebrations. Most notably, the ministry issued a ban on women’s voices and bare faces in public.
That same month, a top UN official warned the laws provided a “distressing vision” for the country’s future by adding to existing employment, education, and dress code restrictions on women and girls. Taliban officials have rejected UN concerns about the morality laws.
Thursday’s report, from the UN mission in Afghanistan, said in the first 6 months of the laws’ implementation, over half of detentions made under it concerned “either men not having the compliant beard length or hairstyle, or barbers providing non-compliant beard trimming or haircuts.”
The report said that the morality police regularly detained people arbitrarily “without due process and legal protections.”
During the holy fasting month of Ramadan, men’s attendance at mandated congregational prayers was closely monitored, leading at times to arbitrary detention of those who didn’t show up, the report added.
The UN mission said that both sexes were negatively affected, particularly people with small businesses such as private education centers, barbers and hairdressers, tailors, wedding caterers and restaurants, leading to a reduction or total loss of income and employment opportunities.
The direct and indirect socio-economic effects of the laws’ implementation were likely to compound Afghanistan’s dire economic situation, it said. A World Bank study has assessed that authorities’ ban on women from education and work could cost the country over $1.4 billion per year.
But the Taliban leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, has emphasized the primacy of Islamic law and the role of the Ministry of Vice and Virtue in reforming Afghan society and its people.
In a message issued ahead of the religious Eid Al-Fitr festival that marks the end of Ramadan, Akhundzada said it was necessary “to establish a society free from corruption and trials, and to prevent future generations from becoming victims of misguided beliefs, harmful practices and bad morals.”
More than 3,300 mostly male inspectors are tasked with informing people about the law and enforcing it, according to the report.
The ministry has resolved thousands of people’s complaints and defended the rights of Afghan women, according to its spokesman Saif ur Rahman Khyber.
This was in addition to “implementing divine decrees in the fields of promoting virtue, preventing vice, establishing affirmations, preventing bad deeds, and eliminating bad customs.”
The ministry was committed to all Islamic and human rights and had proven this in practice, he said Thursday, rejecting attempts to “sabotage or spread rumors” about its activities.
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Taliban morality enforcers arrest men for having the wrong hairstyle or skipping mosque
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Taliban morality enforcers arrest men for having the wrong hairstyle or skipping mosque
- UN report says the morality police regularly detained people arbitrarily “without due process and legal protections”
- During month of Ramadan, men’s attendance at mandated congregational prayers was closely monitored
Clashes in Syria’s Aleppo deepen rift between government, Kurdish forces
ALEPPO: Fierce fighting in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo between government forces and Kurdish fighters drove thousands of civilians from their homes on Wednesday, with Washington reported to be mediating a de-escalation. The violence, and statements trading blame over who started it, signaled that a stalemate between Damascus and Kurdish authorities that have resisted integrating into the central government was deepening and growing deadlier. Deadly clashes broke out on Tuesday between Syrian government troops and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
After relative calm overnight, shelling resumed on Wednesday and intensified in the afternoon, Reuters reporters in the city said.
A spokesperson for Aleppo’s health directorate told Reuters that four civilians had been killed on Tuesday and more than two dozen wounded on Tuesday and Wednesday. Security sources separately told Reuters that two fighters had also been killed.
The health directorate said there were no civilian fatalities on Wednesday, and that it was not authorized to comment on deaths among fighters.
By Wednesday evening, fighting had subsided, the Reuters reporters said. Ilham Ahmed, who heads the foreign affairs department of the Kurdish administration, told Reuters that international mediation efforts were underway to de-escalate. A source familiar with the matter told Reuters the US was mediating.
THOUSANDS OF CIVILIANS FLEE
The directorate for social affairs said on Wednesday night that more than 45,000 people had been displaced from Aleppo city, most of them heading northwest toward the enclave of Afrin.
The Syrian army announced that military positions in the Kurdish-held neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah were “legitimate military targets.” Two Syrian security officials told Reuters that they expected a significant military operation in the city.
The government opened humanitarian corridors for civilians to flee flashpoint neighborhoods, ferrying them out on city buses.
“We move them safely to the places they want to go to according to their desire or to displaced shelters,” said Faisal Mohammad Ali, operations chief of the civil defense force in Aleppo.
The latest fighting has disrupted civilian life in what is a leading Syrian city, closing the airport and a highway to Turkiye, halting operations at factories in an industrial zone and paralysing major roads into the city center.
The Damascus government said its forces were responding to rocket fire, drone attacks and shelling from Kurdish-held neighborhoods. Kurdish forces said they held Damascus “fully and directly responsible for ... the dangerous escalation that threatens the lives of thousands of civilians and undermines stability in the city.” During Syria’s 14-year civil war, Kurdish authorities began running a semi-autonomous zone in northeast Syria, as well as in parts of Aleppo city.
They have been reluctant to give up those zones and integrate fully into the Islamist-led government that took over after ex-President Bashar Assad’s ousting in late 2024.
Last year, the Damascus government reached a deal with the SDF that envisaged a full integration by the end of 2025, but the two sides have made little progress, each accusing the other of stalling or acting in bad faith.
The US has stepped in as a mediator, holding meetings as recently as Sunday to try to nudge the process forward. Sunday’s meetings ended with no tangible progress.
Failure to integrate the SDF into Syria’s army risks further violence and could potentially draw in Turkiye, which has threatened an incursion against Kurdish fighters it views as terrorists.
After relative calm overnight, shelling resumed on Wednesday and intensified in the afternoon, Reuters reporters in the city said.
A spokesperson for Aleppo’s health directorate told Reuters that four civilians had been killed on Tuesday and more than two dozen wounded on Tuesday and Wednesday. Security sources separately told Reuters that two fighters had also been killed.
The health directorate said there were no civilian fatalities on Wednesday, and that it was not authorized to comment on deaths among fighters.
By Wednesday evening, fighting had subsided, the Reuters reporters said. Ilham Ahmed, who heads the foreign affairs department of the Kurdish administration, told Reuters that international mediation efforts were underway to de-escalate. A source familiar with the matter told Reuters the US was mediating.
THOUSANDS OF CIVILIANS FLEE
The directorate for social affairs said on Wednesday night that more than 45,000 people had been displaced from Aleppo city, most of them heading northwest toward the enclave of Afrin.
The Syrian army announced that military positions in the Kurdish-held neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafiyah were “legitimate military targets.” Two Syrian security officials told Reuters that they expected a significant military operation in the city.
The government opened humanitarian corridors for civilians to flee flashpoint neighborhoods, ferrying them out on city buses.
“We move them safely to the places they want to go to according to their desire or to displaced shelters,” said Faisal Mohammad Ali, operations chief of the civil defense force in Aleppo.
The latest fighting has disrupted civilian life in what is a leading Syrian city, closing the airport and a highway to Turkiye, halting operations at factories in an industrial zone and paralysing major roads into the city center.
The Damascus government said its forces were responding to rocket fire, drone attacks and shelling from Kurdish-held neighborhoods. Kurdish forces said they held Damascus “fully and directly responsible for ... the dangerous escalation that threatens the lives of thousands of civilians and undermines stability in the city.” During Syria’s 14-year civil war, Kurdish authorities began running a semi-autonomous zone in northeast Syria, as well as in parts of Aleppo city.
They have been reluctant to give up those zones and integrate fully into the Islamist-led government that took over after ex-President Bashar Assad’s ousting in late 2024.
Last year, the Damascus government reached a deal with the SDF that envisaged a full integration by the end of 2025, but the two sides have made little progress, each accusing the other of stalling or acting in bad faith.
The US has stepped in as a mediator, holding meetings as recently as Sunday to try to nudge the process forward. Sunday’s meetings ended with no tangible progress.
Failure to integrate the SDF into Syria’s army risks further violence and could potentially draw in Turkiye, which has threatened an incursion against Kurdish fighters it views as terrorists.
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