Haqqani also set out some parameters for the future of women and work, which will be limited by the Taliban’s interpretation of Islamic law and “national, cultural and traditional principles”….reports Asian Lite News
A senior Taliban official has repeated the group’s as-yet-unfulfilled pledge to allow girls back into high schools, saying there would be “good news soon”, but suggested that women who protested the regime’s restrictions on women’s rights should stay home, CNN reported.
Sirajuddin Haqqani, Afghanistan’s acting interior minister and the Taliban’s co-deputy leader since 2016, made the comments in the first on-camera interview showing his face with CNN.
When asked about Afghan women who say they are afraid to leave their homes under Taliban rule, and those who have reported a chilling effect of the militant group’s leadership, Haqqani added with a laugh: “We keep naughty women at home.”
After being pressed to clarify his comment by CNN, he said: “By saying naughty women, it was a joke referring to those naughty women who are controlled by some other sides to bring the current government into question.”
Haqqani also set out some parameters for the future of women and work, which will be limited by the Taliban’s interpretation of Islamic law and “national, cultural and traditional principles”.
“They are allowed to work within their own framework,” he told CNN.
“Already girls are allowed to go to school up to grade 6, and above that grade, the work is continuing on a mechanism,” Haqqani said.
“Very soon, you will hear very good news on this issue, God willing,” he added, without specifying a timeframe, CNN reported.
In another new decree, the Taliban directed all-female presenters working on all TV channels to cover their faces while presenting programs, TOLOnews tweeted.
Continuing the thread, the ministries of Vice and Virtue and Information and Culture called it a final verdict and said that the order has been issued to all media outlets in Afghanistan.
The atrocities of the Taliban against Afghan women have been on an incessant surge since the organization seized power in Afghanistan in August last year, banning young girls and women of humanitarian rights.
Taliban, in its official order earlier, directed female staff members of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) to wear the hijab at offices and has also curtailed Afghan women from wearing make-up and reproductive rights, ban on education for girls from classes 6 and above being an add on.
Dozens of Afghan women are protesting against the Taliban leader’s new order on women wearing the hijab.
Unrecognized by most of the international community, the Taliban-led government has committed to disrespecting the human rights and rights of women.
The UN mission in Afghanistan has expressed concern about the announcement, saying that this decision contradicts numerous assurances regarding respect for and protection of all Afghans’ human rights, including those of women and girls.
The Taliban had warned that if the women disobeyed the order, their parents would be punished and imprisoned. (IANS/ANI)