Taliban Hard -Liners Turn the Clock on Afghanistan on Women’s Rights –

ISLAMABAD (AP) – Taliban supporters in Afghanistan have been repeating repressive sentences in recent days, reflecting their strict leadership since the late 1990s.

Girls are prohibited from attending school beyond the sixth grade, girls are prohibited from boarding a plane if they are traveling with a male relative. Men and women are only allowed to visit public parks on certain days and the use of mobile phones in universities is prohibited.

International media broadcasts – including BBC Pashto and Persian services, which broadcast in two Afghani languages ​​- were suspended over the weekend. There are also foreign drama series.

Since the Taliban invaded the country in mid-August, in the last turbulent week after the 20-year war between the U.S. and NATO, the international community has worried that they will impose the same strict laws as when they ruled Afghanistan.

The latest attack on women’s rights came earlier this month when the Taliban government broke its promise to allow girls to return to school after sixth grade. The move has shocked many parts of the world – and many in Afghanistan – especially after the Taliban gave all the “necessary guarantees” that it would not happen.

The UN has Call Ban broadcasts on international media “Another repressive measure against the Afghan people”. The BBC’s Pashto service website said it was a “disturbing development in times of uncertainty and turmoil”.

“More than 6 million Afghans use independent and impartial BBC television reporting on a weekly basis, and it is important that they do not deny access to it in the future,” said Tariq Kafala, language director of BBC World Service on Sunday.

On Monday, members of the Ministry of Virtue and the Deputy Taliban stood outside government ministries and ordered male employees to go home without the traditional turban and beard, a symbol of mercy. One employee who was told to go home said he did not know if he would be able to return to work and when. He spoke on condition of anonymity, in fear for his safety.

A senior Taliban official and Afghans known to their Taliban leadership said the rush to return to the past – followed by orders – emerged last week after a three -day meeting in the southern city of Kandahar, the Taliban stronghold.

They said the ordinances came at a request from the hardline Taliban leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada, who seemed to be trying to take over the country in the late 1990s, when the Taliban banned women from education and public spaces and banned the music. Television and many sports.

“Taliban children do not agree with some of these orders, but they cannot oppose the elders,” said Torek Farhadi, an analyst who has served as an adviser to previous Afghan governments. Farhad, who has been in contact with Taliban officials since they returned to power, did not elaborate.

More and more pragmatists among the Taliban are resisting the orders, or at least quietly ignoring them, Farhad said.

After the Taliban took control of the country, trying to move from insurrection and war to government, the hard line increasingly opposes pragmatists on how to lead the country in the face of a humanitarian crisis and an independent economy. Fall.

Taliban leadership today is different from the one-man rule of Mullah Mohammad Omar, the moderate founder of the Taliban movement in the mid-1990s, who ruled with a heavy hand. Conflict is growing between some of the older guards who support the tough government of the past and the younger generations of Taliban leaders who see a future for engagement with the international community.

The younger generation sees rights for both men and women, even if it is still in the interpretation of Islamic law, but what enables education for women and girls in the world of work.

“The younger Taliban should speak up,” Farhad said.

However, Akhundzada set the model for Mullah Omar and preferred to stay in remote Kandahar, which is not visible to the public, instead of ruling Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. It also follows the tribal customs of the Pashtuns, traditions in which women are hidden and girls are promised in adolescence.

Akhunzada ran a madrassa, or religious school, in Pakistan’s border regions until he became the new leader of the Taliban in 2016. Those who knew Akhunzada said he didn’t care about international anger in the latest command of the suppression of the Taliban and the growing discontent and the claim of Afghans becoming increasingly open.

Akhunzada reportedly vetoed the opening of schools for girls after sixth grade, as promised by the Taliban in late March, at the start of the new school year. On Saturday, dozens of girls gathered in Kabul demanding their right to attend school.

Ethnic Pashtuns elsewhere have opposed the Taliban’s adherence to tribal laws. In Pakistan, where ethnic Pashtuns also dominate in the border regions, movements such as the Pashtun rights movement have emerged to challenge backward tribal traditions and reject the Taliban’s interpretations of Islamic law.

The leader of the movement Manzur Pashtin was an outspoken opponent and accused the Taliban of kidnapping the feelings of ethnic Pashtuns and misinterpreting their traditions and misinterpreting them as religious ordinances.

Akhunzada’s attack on progress comes at a time when the health of Hassan Akhund, a hardline-appointed Taliban prime minister, is deteriorating. Akhund did not meet with Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi last week when the Chinese senior diplomat was on an unexpected one -day visit to Kabul.

Farhad hopes that younger, more pragmatic Taliban leaders will find their voice and invite Islamic nations and scholars, as well as Afghan scholars and politicians, to meet with them.

“The Taliban movement needs reform,” Farhad said. “It was slow and frustrating for all the participants. But we must not give up. “

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