Taliban Issues New Decree Banning Women from Hearing Other Women’s Voices During Prayer
The Taliban has once again restricted women’s rights, this time by banning them from “hearing other women’s voices” during prayer, according to reports this week.
Khalid Hanafi, acting minister of the Vice and Virtue Ministry, made the announcement in a voice message posted on the ministry’s social media pages, which has since been removed, The Associated Press confirmed.
“Even when an adult female prays and another female passes by, she must not pray loudly enough for them to hear,” he said in a message reported to have been “rambling”.
Specific details of the ban remain unclear, as women are already prohibited from leading prayers or calling others to prayer. They must also be fully covered, including their faces, under a new law decreed by the ministry in August.
“It is prohibited for a grown woman to recite Quranic verses or perform recitations in front of another grown woman. Even chants of takbir (Allahu Akbar) are not permitted,” Hanafi said in the message reportedly posted on Monday. “So, there is certainly no permission for singing.”
The ban on public speaking enforced in August also means that women speaking inside their homes should not be able to be heard from outside.
This latest ban appears to be an attempt to prevent women from praying or from using expressions like “subhanallah” – which is a common phrase essentially meaning “Glory be to Allah” – even while in their own homes if they are in front of other women.
The Taliban have claimed these restrictions on women are a move to stop them from “temptation and tempting others,” and women in Afghanistan are required to have a male guardian whenever they leave their homes.
Women who are found to have defied the rules are arrested and imprisoned.
A report by Richard Bennett, the special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, was alarming. He found instances of sexual violence, including rape, used against women arrested by the Taliban.
In his report, Bennett found the Taliban’s “system of gender oppression may amount to crimes against humanity, including gender persecution.”
Bennett is set to present the findings of his report to the United Nations General Assembly on Nov. 1.