Taliban issues latest decree stripping women of rights, ordering all must cover face in public
Taliban on Saturday ordered all Aghan women to wear an all-covering burqa in public that veils their faces, in one of the harshes attacks on women’s rights since wresting power last year.
The decree from the group’s supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada comes amid an aggressive effort by the Islamist government to clip women’s authority in public.
A Taliban spokesperson at a press conference in Kabul said that a woman’s father or closest male relative would be visited and eventually imprisoned or fired from government jobs if she is in violation of the new rule.
According to the group, an ideal face covering was the all-encompassing blue burqa.
Earlier this month the Taliban stopped issuing driving licences to women in Kabul and other provinces, local media reported citing verbal orders.
Notorious for their oppression of women during their first regime between 1996 and 2001, the Taliban had projected themselves to be more accepting of women’s free will after taking over the country in August 2021.
