Chapter 2 continues…

Music was prohibited in shops, hotels, vehicles and anyone found with cassettes was to be imprisoned. Bushy beard remained compulsory for men and anyone found guilty of shaving or cutting his beard would be imprisoned. Keeping pigeons and playing with birds was prohibited and those birds had to be killed immediately. To prevent idolatry, all pictures and portraits in shops and hotels were abolished.

Besides, any form of gambling, addiction, sorcery, British and American hairstyle, music and dance at family wedding parties were strictly prohibited and anybody found guilty would be fined and punished. Apart from all this, praying at appropriate times was strictly enforced and people found loitering during prayer times were immediately imprisoned.

These rules were strictly enforced by Maulvi Inayatullah Baligh, a former career bureaucrat with the Rabbani regime, who commanded a team of 100 religious inspectors to enforce these edicts strictly. In December 1996, Radio Sharia made an announcement that 225 Kabul women were beaten in a single day for violating the department’s dress codes.

Kandahari authority over the Taleban rank and file was evident when Mullah Omar in a letter advised to enforce restraint as ‘... such kinds of punishment and beating need the permission of the Imam and Emir, other wise the doer of such action will be punished under the qisas (those who make a great sin).’ However public announcements of such punishments by the Radio Sharia was also stopped immediately.
Thereafter there was a crack down on foreign journalists, with no indigenous newspaper and no independent radio, details of the Taleban impositions filtered out of the country.

Photography was outlawed and contacts with the women were restricted to such an extent that their condition and mental agony remained confined to themselves. While the Taleban closed their doors to the outside world, international humanitarian agencies could not implement their programmes as conflict broke out in northern parts of the country and the Hazarazat. The Taleban rule was based on their understanding of the Islamic precepts of government.

To be continued…