They fired all the officers who wouldn't grow beards, and now they're banning the sound of women's voices singing or reading, among many other new controls on public life. The Taliban is sinking in.
The 114-page, 35-article document seen by The Associated Press constitutes the first formal declaration of vice and virtue laws in Afghanistan since the Taliban seized power in 2021, when it also set up a ministry for the "propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice."
The laws will empower the ministry to be at the frontline of regulating personal conduct, administering punishments like warnings or arrest if enforcers allege that Afghans have broken the laws. The laws ban the publication of images of living beings, threatening an already fragile Afghan media landscape; the playing of music; the transportation of solo female travelers; and the mixing of men and women who are not related to each other. The laws also oblige passengers and drivers to perform prayers at designated times.
The U.N. reported recently on the Taliban's morality police; if a more moderate military faction was ascendant during the fighting, the true believers are now firmly in charge.
Previously:
• The Taliban bans the video game PUBG for being 'too violent'
• Taliban announces it will start stoning women to death in public
• Taliban orders Afghanistan's hair salons to shut
