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‘Sin under Islam,’ Taliban bans women students from taking videos, photos on university campus

Afghanistan journalist Bilal Sarwary has argued that the Taliban’s latest diktat against women, linking photography to Islam, was without evidence.

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New Delhi: The Taliban government in Afghanistan has reportedly banned female students in medical universities from taking videos or photographs while on campus, in another instance of its continued repression of women and girls.

Afghan journalist Bilal Sarwary posted the government’s notice on Twitter, deriding the Taliban’s rationale that such behavior was “sinful” under Islamic law as baseless.

— BILAL SARWARY (@bsarwary) September 19, 2022

“… without evidence though,” Sarwary said of the diktat which considers taking photographs a “big sin.” He added it was, “Another example of full scale Talibanization of Afghanistan.”

One of several

This is yet another trough in the wave of repression Afghan women face in the hands of the Taliban. Since the Taliban seized control of the country last August, women have been systematically excluded from all forms of public life.

Women hold no cabinet positions in the de-facto administration, and the Ministry of Women Affairs has been abolished. At this point, women play no role in politics and the day-to-day functioning of the country.

There are heavy restrictions on movement as well. Women who want to travel distances over 72 kilometers cannot do so, unless accompanied by a male relative. Amnesty international published a report which said that women and girls have been arrested “for minor violations of their discriminatory policies, such as the rule against appearing in public without a mahram [male chaperone] or with a man who does not qualify as a ‘mahram’ Those arrested are usually charged with the ambiguous “crime of moral corruption.”

Earlier this year, Taliban officials announced that girls’ high schools would remain closed, just as they were set to open after over 6 months. Girls students above the sixth grade have, therefore, not attended school since the Taliban take-over last August. Initially, schools were said to be shut due to the Covid-19 pandemic, but eventually opened for only boys and younger girls.

In response

Last month, the Taliban brutally shut up a group of 40 women protesting the violation of such basic rights, the BBC reported

One women protesters said: “They acted differently than earlier protests [when we were beaten]. They fired shots in the air. Though we’re afraid, we came out to advocate for the rights of girls, so that at least the Taliban will open schools for them.”

In reference to the present Taliban rule, India’s permanent representative to the United Nations told the Security Council, “We are particularly concerned about the discriminatory inferior status being accorded to women in the Afghan society, which has inter alia adversely impacted the education of Afghan girls.”


Also read: ‘What’s there to celebrate,’ Afghans ask as Taliban mark one year in power in Kabul


 

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