Taliban religious police orders women to 'cover-up'
The Taliban's Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice on Friday issued posters around the capital Kabul ordering Afghan women to cover up.
KABUL, Sept. 21 : The Taliban said on Tuesday Afghan girls will be allowed to return to school "as soon as possible", after their movement faced shock and fury over their effective exclusion of women and girls from public life.
The hardliners' spokesman meanwhile announced the remaining members of Afghanistan's new all-male government, weeks after the militants seized Kabul in an offensive that shocked the world.
The Taliban were notorious for their brutal, oppressive rule from 1996 to 2001, when women were largely barred from work and school, including being banned from leaving their homes unless accompanied by a male relative.
One month after seizing power and pledging a softer version of their previous regime, the Islamists have incrementally stripped away at Afghans' freedoms.
During the weekend, the education ministry issued a diktat ordering male teachers and students back to secondary school -- but made no mention of the country's women educators and girl pupils.
At a press conference in Kabul, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said of the return of girls to school: "We are finalising things... it will happen as soon as possible."
He added that "a safe learning environment" needed to be established beforehand.
- No female ministers -
The Taliban announced their new leadership earlier in September, drawn up exclusively from loyalist ranks. Announcing the final line-up on Tuesday, Mujahid made no reference to the now closed women's affairs ministry. No female ministers were named.
The Taliban now face the colossal task of ruling Afghanistan, an aid-dependent country whose economic troubles have only deepened since the Islamists seized power and outside funding was frozen.
Many government employees have not been paid for months, with food prices soaring. "We have the funds but need time to get the process working," Mujahid said.
The Taliban have also slashed women's access to work, with officials previously telling them to stay at home for their own security until segregation under the group's restrictive interpretation of sharia law can be implemented.
While the country's new rulers have not issued a formal policy outright banning women from working, directives by individual officials have amounted to their exclusion from the workplace.
The acting mayor of the capital Kabul has said any municipal jobs currently held by women would be filled by men.
Although still marginalised, Afghan women have fought for and gained basic rights in the past 20 years, becoming lawmakers, judges, pilots and police officers, though mostly limited to large cities.
Under the ousted US-backed government, hundreds of thousands of women entered the workforce -- with many becoming their families' sole breadwinners after becoming widowed, or when their husbands were maimed during decades of conflict.
KABUL, September 10: With the Taliban forming the interim "Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan," and appointing hardliners in its new government, experts have warned that risks of terrorism are set to increase in the war-torn country.
"For the foreseeable future, Afghanistan will be led by senior Taliban leaders who include in many cases the worst of the worst," Michael Kugelman, deputy director of the Asia Program at the Wilson Center, told CNBC on Wednesday. Kugelman pointed specifically to members of the Haqqani network, known as the most brutal faction of the Taliban.
"I think you're looking at a situation where no matter what type of government we're going to have in Afghanistan, terrorism risks were going to increase just because you have the Taliban in control," Kugelman said, adding "the Taliban is not known for trying to deny space to its partners in the country, with the exception of ISIS-K, which is their rival."
"You're going to have several members of the Haqqani network -- which has been implicated in some of the most mass casualty horrific terrorist attacks in Afghanistan over the years -- and several of these leaders are going to be occupying these top spots, including the interior ministry, and clearly that is a major cause for concern, no matter how you slice it," he added.
On Tuesday, the Taliban formed the interim "Islamic Emirate", appointing hardliners in its new government who oversaw the 20-year fight against the US-led military coalition.
The cabinet members consist of many Taliban figures that are considered hardliners. The list announced by chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid was dominated by members of the group's old guard, with no women included.In what is seen as a controversial appointment, Sirajuddin Haqqani has become Afghanistan's interior minister, in charge of police and security. Haqqani is the leader of the Haqqani network, which is known to have links to al-Qaeda. He is on the FBI's most-wanted list and is a designated global terrorist. The Taliban's provision of a safe haven to al-Qaeda in the 1990s is what led the US to invade Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks, CNBC reported.
Mullah Muhammad Hassan Akhund has been appointed as interim Prime Minister with two deputies Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and Molavi Abdul Salam Hanafi.
