In Afghanistan’s Herat, Taliban bans women from ‘restaurants with gardens’ to bar ‘mingling with men’

The ban on families and women comes after complaints from religious scholars about some parks being disguised as restaurants where men and women would fraternise.

Representational image of Afghan women | Reuters

New Delhi: The Taliban has banned families and women from entering restaurants with gardens or green spaces in Afghanistan’s northwestern province of Herat, the Associated Press has reported. 

According to the report published Monday, Baz Mohammad Nazir, the deputy official from the government’s Ministry of Vice and Virtue’s directorate at Herat, said the decision came after religious scholars complained that members of different genders mingled in such spaces and that women weren’t wearing their hijabs correctly. 

This is the latest in a slew of measures taken to exclude women from public spaces. Since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in August 2021, women have already been shut out of schools beyond the sixth grade and universities, public spaces like gardens, and most jobs, including in the United Nations office in the country. 

However, outdoor dining remains open for men, the report said.

“After repeated complaints from scholars and ordinary people, we set limits and closed these restaurants,” Nazir was quoted as saying. He also dismissed claims that all restaurants were banned for women as propaganda. 

However, Azizurrahman Al Muhajir, the head of the Vice and Virtue directorate in Herat, claimed that some parks were being disguised as restaurants where men and women were fraternising. 

“It was like a park but they named it a restaurant and men and women were together. Thank God it has been corrected now. Also, our auditors are observing all the parks where men and women go,” he told the Associated Press. 

The European Union (EU) has called the ban a violation of international law. Since the ban last week, the UN stated that 3,300 male and female employees of the organisation have remained home. 

‘No ban, only advice not to see foreign films’

Nazir also denied media reports on the ban on foreign films, TV shows and music in the country, saying that they were only advising business owners not to sell such material for it contradicts Islamic values. Shop owners who didn’t adhere to such advice were forced to shut down their businesses, he said to the Associated Press.  

He denied local reports that internet cafes had shut down in Herat, adding that only gaming arcades were banned for children because of unsuitable content. 

Some games insulted the Kaaba, the cube-shaped structure in the Great Mosque at Mecca toward which Muslims turn when praying, and other Islamic symbols, the report said.

“Internet cafes, where students learn and use for their studies, are necessary and we have allowed them,” the Associated Press quoted Nazir as saying.

(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)