Taliban official says women detained for improper dress amid crackdown in Kabul
Afghan security official claims detainees were only advised ‘to have greater respect and dignity’ and were not ‘disrespected or humiliated’
KABUL, Afghanistan — A Taliban official has said several girls and women were detained recently in Kabul for not covering themselves properly, after reports circulated of a crackdown in the Afghan capital.
In a video posted on social media Wednesday, security official Ehsanullah Saqib told a gathering of religious scholars in Kabul’s western Dasht-e-Barchi neighborhood that in the past week “we have detained a number of women and girls who were without hijab, with the help of women police.”
Since returning to power in August 2021, Taliban authorities have imposed a strict interpretation of Islam, with women bearing the brunt of laws the United Nations has labeled “gender apartheid.”
Women have been squeezed from public life, barred from traveling without a male relative and ordered to cover everything but their hands and eyes when outside the home, though many women still go out in Kabul without covering their mouths.
Ehsanullah, addressing the gathering on Tuesday, according to the video posted on X by Khaama Press and Amu TV, said the women and girls were detained because they were “totally without hijab,” wearing trousers or leggings and dresses, instead of a garment that loosely covers the whole body.
“They were arrested to inform their families that their sister, daughter or wife roams without hijab and they should prevent this,” he said.
Abdul Ghafar Sabawoon, the spokesman for the Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and Promotion of Virtue, told AFP the women had “only been advised by female police to have greater respect and dignity [in observing hijab].”
“No woman has been disrespected or humiliated, nor do we have anyone in… custody in connection to this.”
In a recent post on X, the ministry denied some images circulating were of police rounding up women over not wearing hijab, saying they were pictures of authorities removing beggars from the streets.
A human rights activist in Afghanistan who asked not to be identified said the detentions were meant to “put pressure on families to force women and girls to wear hijab and instill fear in women and girls through their families.”
“This is the first time the Taliban has arrested women and girls from the streets openly” over hijab, she told AFP.
“But the arrest of a group of women under the pretext of ‘bad hijab’ was neither surprising nor unexpected, because we know that the Taliban try to suppress women in every possible way and use fear and terror to oppress them.”
Recent arrests of women in Kabul #Afghanistan for "bad hijab", confirmed by #Taliban, regrettably signifies further restrictions on women's freedom of expression and undermines other rights. They should all be released immediately and without conditions.
— UN Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett (@SR_Afghanistan) January 5, 2024
UN special rapporteur Richard Bennett responded to initial reports of the detentions in a post on X on Friday, saying the recent “arrests of women in Kabul… regrettably signifies further restrictions on women’s freedom of expression and undermines other rights.”
Despite initial promises of a more moderate rule than during their previous stint in power in the 1990s, the Taliban have imposed harsh measures since seizing Afghanistan in August 2021 as US and NATO forces were pulling out.
They have barred women from public spaces, like parks and gyms, and cracked down on media freedoms. The measures have triggered a fierce international uproar, increasing the country’s isolation at a time when its economy has collapsed, and have worsened a humanitarian crisis.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
