Afghan women cannot ‘hear each other’ while praying in Taliban’s new curb on women’s voices
Arpan Rai
Tue 29 October 2024
Afghan women cannot ‘hear each other’ while praying in Taliban’s new curb on women’s voices
The Taliban in Afghanistan have implemented a bizarre new edict that will further curb voices of women who are already prohibited from speaking in public.
Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, the Taliban minister for the propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice, declared that women must refrain from reciting the Quran aloud in the presence of other women, reported Amu TV, an Afghan news channel based in Virginia, US.
“When women are not permitted to call Takbir or Azan (Islamic call to prayer), they certainly cannot sing songs or music,” he said in remarks reported on Saturday.
“Even when an adult female prays and another female passes by, she must not pray loudly enough for them to hear ... How could they be allowed to sing if they aren’t even permitted to hear [each other’s] voices while praying, let alone for anything else,” Mr Hanafi was also quoted as saying by The Telegraph.
A woman’s voice is considered awrah, meaning that which must be covered, and shouldn’t be heard in public, even by other women, the minister said.
Women, including human rights experts, fear this diktat would go beyond prayer and restrict them from holding conversations with each other, further minimizing their social presence.
This comes just two months after the Taliban implemented a new set of laws in August that also ordered women to cover their entire bodies, including faces, when stepping out.
A midwife in Herat told Amu TV that Taliban officials forbid female healthcare workers, the last of the Afghan women allowed to work outside their homes, from speaking, especially with male relatives. “They don’t even allow us to speak at checkpoints when we go to work. And in the clinics, we are told not to discuss medical matters with male relatives,” the midwife, who has worked in remote healthcare clinics for eight years, told the channel.
It is not known whether the latest rule has been implemented or how widely.
The Taliban have increasingly curtailed women’s rights, even banning formal education for them, since they returned to power in 2021 after overthrowing the Nato-backed regime.
Mr Hanifi’s latest remarks have sparked a furore on social media.
“After banning women’s voices from public, the Taliban’s ministry of vice and virtue banned women from speaking to each other. I am in loss for words to express my utter rage and disgust about the Taliban’s mistreatment of women,” said journalist Lina Rozbih said. “The world must do something! Help millions of voiceless & helpless women of Afghanistan.”
“This surpasses misogyny,” said Nazifa Haqpal, a former Afghan diplomat. “It exemplifies an extreme level of control and absurdity,” she said.
Zubaida Akbar, a human rights and civil society activist from Afghanistan, called for the Taliban leaders to be held accountable for their “gender apartheid” diktats. “Today’s ban on women’s voices in each other’s presence comes from Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, Taliban’s minister of vice and virtue, who published a 100+ page book of edicts against women last month,” she said on X.
“Every ban on women has a face behind it & must be held accountable for gender apartheid,” she said.
Taliban bans women from ‘hearing other women’s voices’
Akhtar Makoii
Mon 28 October 2024
The Afghan regime has banned women from working outside the home or attending school and university - MOHSEN KARIMI/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
The Taliban has banned women from hearing other women’s voices in its latest attempt to impose a hardline version of Islamic law on Afghanistan.
In a rambling voice message on Monday, the country’s minister for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice announced the bizarre new restriction on women’s behaviour.
Although precise details of the Taliban’s ruling are unclear, Afghan human rights activists have warned it could mean women are effectively banned from holding conversations with one another.
In his message, minister Khalid Hanafi said: “Even when an adult female prays and another female passes by, she must not pray loudly enough for them to hear.”
An Afghan woman searches for recyclable materials at a garbage dump on the outskirts of Mazar-i-Sharif - ATIF ARYAN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
“How could they be allowed to sing if they aren’t even permitted to hear [each other’s] voices while praying, let alone for anything else.”
He said these are “new rules and will be gradually implemented, and God will be helping us in each step we take”.
As the Taliban has banned living beings from being shown on television, his message was delivered via voice recording instead of a television broadcast.
“How are women who are the sole providers for their families supposed to buy bread, seek medical care or simply exist if even their voices are forbidden?” one activist said in response.
“Whatever he says is a form of mental torture for us,” an Afghan woman in Kabul told The Telegraph.
“Living in Afghanistan is incredibly painful for us as women. Afghanistan is forgotten, and that’s why they are suppressing us – they are torturing us on a daily basis.”
“They say we cannot hear other women’s voices, and I do not understand where these views come from,” she added.
Taliban minister Khalid Hanafi said: “God will be helping us in each step we take” - AHMAD SAHEL ARMAN/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES
Since taking power in Aug 2021, the Taliban has systematically restricted women’s rights in Afghanistan.
Women have already been ordered to cover their faces “to avoid temptation and tempting others” and refrain from speaking in the presence of unfamiliar men who are not husbands or close relatives.
“If it is necessary for women to leave their homes, they must cover their faces and voices from men” and be accompanied by a “male guardian”, according to the rules approved by the Taliban’s supreme leader.
Afghan women have also been ordered not to speak loudly inside their homes, to prevent their voices from being heard outside.
Women who defy the new rules will be arrested and sent to prison, the Taliban said.
In July 2024, a UN report said the ministry for promoting virtue and preventing vice was contributing to a climate of fear and intimidation among Afghans through its edicts and the methods used to enforce them.
Armed Taliban security personnel ride motorcycles during a street patrol - AFP/GETTY IMAGES
The Taliban’s supreme leader has also vowed to start stoning women to death in public.
“They [the Taliban] are waging an all-out war against us, and we have no one in the world to hear our voices,” a former civil servant told The Telegraph from Kabul.
“The world has abandoned us,” she added. “They left us to the Taliban, and whatever happens to us now is a result of Western government policies.”
‘Many women are taking their lives’
“I feel depressed. The world is advancing in technology and having fun with their lives, but here we cannot even hear each other’s voices,” she said.
“They want us not to exist at all, and there’s nothing we can do about it,” another woman in western Herat province said.
“They may succeed at some point, as many are taking their lives due to the pressure,” she added
“They think ruling Afghanistan is only about suppressing women – we didn’t commit a crime by being born as women,” she said.
The increased restrictions imposed by the Taliban’s supreme leader have caused discord within the Taliban’s own ranks.
A senior Taliban official told The Telegraph of frustration from moderates with the more hardline elements of the regime.
“Someone should stop the supreme leader. Many within the Taliban are angry and worried that, with everything the leadership is doing, we could lose Afghanistan as quickly as we took it,” he added.
“They are worried that as soon as an alternative to the Taliban appears, the people will revolt, and the West will bomb us again,” the official explained.
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