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# A Woman Being Eliminated, On Barbarous Orders from the Virtue and Vice Police
May 23 2022
Written by Abby Zimet.
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SAY WHAT? - In one of their harshest and most ominous moves since a supposedly more beneficent Taliban returned to power last August, a new edict mandates that all Afghan women [**cover ](https://www.npr.org/2022/05/07/1097382550/taliban-women-burqa-decree)their faces with a full burqa - swathed head-to-toe, eyes peering from a veil - if they dare to wish to leave their now-prison-like homes: "They are putting us in a cage." The decree, which marks a return to a signature policy of their dark past and a drastic escalation of strictures on women, was [**issued**](https://tolonews.com/afghanistan-177905) by the Taliban's hardline Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice - which replaced the Ministry of Women's Affairs, so what else needs to be said. The rule officially [**tasks ](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-61402309)male "guardians" in women's lives - brother, husband, father - with enforcing the crackdown, leading already-besieged women to feel they're "fighting on two fronts - with my family and with the Taliban." If women violate the rule, men face penalties that rise from "persuasion" by a minister's visit to a fine or trip to Taliban offices to prison time to unspecified "further punishment." Meanwhile, virtue-and-vice thugs regularly[ patrol ](https://rukhshana.com/en/women-face-verbal-and-physical-abuse-in-the-streets-by-the-talibans-religious-police)streets and shops to interrogate, harass or beat women who are only covering their head with a hijab, wearing bright colors, or committing other sins of propriety. [**Asked ](https://twitter.com/SecKermani/status/1527166522644385798)why they have the right to decide how women dress or practice their religion, one official responds, "It's not us - it's God."
Before returning women to an oppressive burqa[ not required**](https://msmagazine.com/2022/05/10/afghan-women-taliban-head-coverings-burka/) in other Muslim countries - "This isn't about hijab - it's about wanting to make all women disappear" - the Taliban had been assiduously working to undo two decades of progress. Under their rule, girls can't [**attend**](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/23/girls-in-afghanistan-school-taliban) school after 6th grade; women can't go outside the home without a male chaperone, have lost government jobs, have had businesses closed, have seen human rights groups [**dissolve; ](https://twitter.com/ShaharzadAkbar/status/1526862479560777728)activists have lost homes and passports, been kidnapped and killed, l[**ive in fear ](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/16/we-are-struggling-two-former-officialsafghan-women-affairs-ministry)and hiding from Taliban retribution, as though "being a woman is a crime." "So much pain & grief for women of my country," [**writes ](https://twitter.com/ShaharzadAkbar/status/1522908524627509248)one, "my heart is exploding." This week, in a "[**final**](https://www.indiatimes.com/trending/social-relevance/taliban-orders-female-afghan-tv-presenters-to-cover-their-faces-on-air-570035.html) and non-negotiable" [**decree ](https://www.arise.tv/taliban-say-female-afghan-tv-presenters-must-cover-faces-on-air/)aimed at "not just covering the face but [**shutting ](https://twitter.com/LNajafizada/status/1527323896105422855)the mouth" of women in [**media,**](https://tolonews.com/afghanistan/attack-mediajournalists-178085) all female TV presenters were [**ordered**](https://www.laprensalatina.com/taliban-order-women-tv-presenters-to-cover-their-faces/)to wear masks on air. Officials argued they "play a vital role in the propagation of virtue"; women say the world used masks to protect people from COVID, but the Taliban use masks to obscure faces of women who are "a disease." CNN's Christiane Amanpour [**spoke with**](https://twitter.com/amanpour/status/1527335847518822411) women worried, "Even if we appear with a burqa, maybe they'll say women's voices are forbidden...We women have been taken hostage." The edicts, [**says ](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-05-09/anger-in-afghanistan-as-women-defy-taliban-full-burka-order/101051378)one, "attempt to erase a whole gender and generation of Afghans." In protest, several female anchors [**posted ](https://twitter.com/natiqmalikzada/status/1526952486900092928)before and after mask photos. Wrote TV host Yalda Ali, "This is me - a woman on the verge of being eliminated."
*([**Abby Zimet**](https://www.commondreams.org/author/abby-zimet) has written CD's **[Further](https://www.commondreams.org/further)** column since 2008. A longtime, award-winning journalist, involved in women's, labor, anti-war, social justice and refugee rights issues. Email: .)*
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