The Taliban has implemented a new restriction preventing Afghan women from using their voices in the presence of other women, adding to their existing limitations on women’s rights.
The Taliban’s minister of vice and virtue, Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, issued an audio statement last week prohibiting women from reciting the Quran aloud when other women are present, as reported by Amu TV, a US-based network created by exiled Afghan journalists following the collapse of Afghanistan‘s previous government.
“If a woman is not permitted to perform Takbir, then how could she be allowed to sing?,” the National Post quoted the minister as saying.
According to The Daily Telegraph in London, Hanafi stated that a woman’s voice is considered awrah, which requires covering, and should not be audible in public, even to other women.
Hanafi, who maintains close ties with the Taliban’s supreme leader, faces UN blacklisting and EU sanctions.
Following their return to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban has enacted numerous restrictions on women, similar to their previous rule in the 1990s when they prohibited television and music. In the past three years, they have prevented Afghan girls from accessing middle and high school education, university studies, and employment in government and international NGO positions.
The Taliban has also increased social constraints on Afghan women by closing beauty salons, requiring male guardians for travel, mandating full body and face coverings, and forcing female news presenters to wear masks during broadcasts.