The Taliban’s morality police have detained men and their barbers over hairstyles, and others for missing prayers at mosques during Ramadan, a UN report said on Thursday, six months after laws regulating people’s conduct came into effect.
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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 six 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”.
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Taliban bans beard shaving for men in western Afghan province, sparking outcry
Taliban bans beard shaving for men in western Afghan province, sparking outcry
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 did not show up, the report added.