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https://news.yahoo.com/afghanistan-policing-faces-bodies-beards-230310740.html
In their long white gowns, the inspectors of the Taliban’s Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue look more like food safety inspectors than “moral police”.
But they’re at the forefront of attempts to mould a new, more “Islamic” identity in Afghanistan, in keeping with the group’s hard-line views.
Their role seems broad. During their last visit to a multi-storey shopping centre in Kabul a few months back, shopkeepers remembered the inspectors checking whether products were past their expiry date, as well as instructing them to remove posters featuring women’s bodies.
Many of the images, however, still appeared to be up when the inspectors returned earlier this week, accompanied by the BBC.
Despite being the youngest in the group, a round-faced and bespectacled 25-year-old former madrassa student, Maulvi Mahmoud Fatih, led the way.
Addressing a crowd of male shopkeepers and bystanders that had been rustled up, he delivered a lecture on the importance of saying your prayers and growing a beard.
He spoke in the spirit of brotherly advice: “Keeping the beard is following the example of the Prophet Muhammad,” he said, adding with a chuckle, that it has other “benefits” too.
“These clerics have two or three wives,” he says, gesturing to his fellow inspectors. “It’s a source of power.”…
Earlier this month, it issued an edict that all women should wear a face veil in public. Any woman repeatedly not complying could see their male relative jailed or sent to court….
A small printout, stuck to a pillar by a staircase in the mall has two images illustrating how women should now dress – one is an all-encompassing blue burka, the other is a similar black outfit.
“Muslim women should follow the Islamic veil, this is the order of Sharia,” reads the text….
In their long white gowns, the inspectors of the Taliban’s Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue look more like food safety inspectors than “moral police”.
But they’re at the forefront of attempts to mould a new, more “Islamic” identity in Afghanistan, in keeping with the group’s hard-line views.
Their role seems broad. During their last visit to a multi-storey shopping centre in Kabul a few months back, shopkeepers remembered the inspectors checking whether products were past their expiry date, as well as instructing them to remove posters featuring women’s bodies.
Many of the images, however, still appeared to be up when the inspectors returned earlier this week, accompanied by the BBC.
Despite being the youngest in the group, a round-faced and bespectacled 25-year-old former madrassa student, Maulvi Mahmoud Fatih, led the way.
Addressing a crowd of male shopkeepers and bystanders that had been rustled up, he delivered a lecture on the importance of saying your prayers and growing a beard.
He spoke in the spirit of brotherly advice: “Keeping the beard is following the example of the Prophet Muhammad,” he said, adding with a chuckle, that it has other “benefits” too.
“These clerics have two or three wives,” he says, gesturing to his fellow inspectors. “It’s a source of power.”…
Earlier this month, it issued an edict that all women should wear a face veil in public. Any woman repeatedly not complying could see their male relative jailed or sent to court….
A small printout, stuck to a pillar by a staircase in the mall has two images illustrating how women should now dress – one is an all-encompassing blue burka, the other is a similar black outfit.
“Muslim women should follow the Islamic veil, this is the order of Sharia,” reads the text….
