‘Inclusive’: Taliban Segregates Public Parks by Sex, Woman Allowed only 3 Days a Week

In this picture taken on March 25, 2022, a burqa-clad woman along with children visit the
AHMAD SAHEL ARMAN/AFP via Getty Images
Frances Martel

The Taliban “Ministry of Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice” announced this weekend that women and men would not be allowed in public parks and amusement parks on the same day, unless as part of a “family” visit. The ministry allocated one extra day to men to enjoy the facilities.

The Taliban issued the edict after implementing several other major restrictions on women’s rights in the past week, including banning them from boarding flights without a male chaperone and indefinitely postponing a promised return to school for girls over sixth grade. The Taliban has also heavily promoted the use of the burqa, a full-body covering that Taliban officials had claimed they would not force women to wear instead of the traditional Islamic hijab, or headscarf, and enabled the Virtue Ministry to conduct alcohol raids and implement checkpoints to berate civilians on how to properly maintain facial hair and other sharia matters.

The Taliban, a Sunni jihadist terrorist organization, took over the entirety of Afghanistan in August 2021, shortly after President Joe Biden announced he would extend the U.S. war in the country through the May 2021 deadline brokered by his predecessor, Donald Trump. Taliban spokesmen insisted after former President Ashraf Ghani fled the country that they would build an “inclusive” government representative of the country, but have largely failed to deliver on that promise, granting the top government positions to some of its most notorious senior members and excluding women, ethnic and religious minorities, and any political opponents.

No country has recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan, though China and Iran have referred to the terrorist organization as a “caretaker” government. Many state actors and United Nations agencies have cooperated with Taliban jihadists to invest in Afghanistan and send funds for alleged humanitarian aid.

The Virtue Ministry posted an edict online on Sunday regulating who can enter a public park on any given day. According to the Taliban’s Bakhtar News Agency, “Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday are reserved for women and Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday are reserved for men.”

“Women should observe Islamic hijab,” according to a translation by Afghanistan’s Khaama Press. The agency noted that the Taliban also explained that Taliban jihadists should abstain from terrorizing civilians by bringing weapons into the parks or wearing military uniforms “on the days allocated for men lest they will be held accountable.”

Taliban officials published a similar ordinance for all amusement parks, banning women from these parks on weekends and most working days, as well.

The text published by Bakhtar appeared to also have separate rules that relegated “family” days in parks to Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday, and Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday to, presumably, male “youths,” but did not offer an explanation as far as how this command would be enforced relative to keeping women out of parks for most of the week. Khaama Press did not mention the “family” regulations in the announcement.

Parks have become a core part of the Taliban’s domestic propaganda. Taliban jihadists have insisted in promoting the group as the organization responsible for the end of the 20-year American invasion of the country and thus responsible for restoring peace in the country. Taliban officials have urged civilians to attempt to rebuild economically and socially – within the strict confines of the Taliban’s fundamentalist interpretation of sharia, or the Islamic law.

On Monday, for example, the Bakhtar News Agency boasted that the Taliban organized the country’s tenth annual “Flower Festival,” those in attendance in the photos provided appear to be all men.

Taliban officials similarly announced on Monday that airlines would not be legally permitted to allow women to fly alone, according to sources speaking to the Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“Two officials from Afghanistan’s Ariana Afghan airline and Kam Air said late on Sunday that the Taliban had ordered them to stop boarding women if they were travelling alone,” AFP reported. “The decision was taken after a meeting on Thursday between representatives of the Taliban, the two airlines and airport immigration authorities, the officials told AFP, asking not to be named.”

AFP attributed the decision to the same “Ministry for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice.”

Taliban officials announced last week, breaking a promise repeated widely and often in August to international organizations like UNICEF, that the jihadist regime would not allow girls to return to school beyond sixth grade. Taliban officials at the Ministry of Education had created widespread enthusiasm nationally over the past few months vowing to reopen schools by March, but not indicating that they would stop any girls from attending classes until the first day of school. A senior Taliban jihadi at the Education Ministry, Mawlawi Noorul Haq, abruptly announced that girls over sixth grade would not be returning to school at an event to celebrate the beginning of the school year on Wednesday, stating that those years of schooling for girls “must be standardized and in line with Islamic and Afghan values.”

The announcement prompted scenes of sobbing girls at middle schools and high schools throughout the country except for Herat province, where school continued uninterrupted for all girls until Monday, when authorities in the province announced that middle- and high-school-aged girls would no longer be welcome to receive an education.

“Herat was the only province where female students above the 6th grade were allowed to go to schools for the first and second day of the school year, but the schools’ doors were closed for them on day-three,” Afghanistan’s Tolo News reported. “The female students in Herat said that they have become hopeless about the closing of schools.”

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