Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have begun enforcing a new order requiring all of the country’s female television news anchors to cover their faces while on the air.
After the order was announced Thursday, only a handful of news outlets complied. But on Sunday, most of the female anchors were seen with their faces covered after the Taliban’s Vice and Virtue Ministry began enforcing the decree.
The Information and Culture Ministry had previously announced that the policy was “final and non-negotiable”.
“It’s just an external culture that’s being imposed on us and forcing us to wear a mask, and that can pose a problem for us when presenting our programs,” said Sonia Niazi, a TV presenter at TOLOnews from Afghanistan.
Niazi told Al Jazeera that for the first time she “didn’t feel good at all” while presenting programmes.
“This decree is unpredictable for all presenters because Islam has not commanded us to cover our faces,” Niazi said.
“Every Islamic scholar and political figure has spoken out against this decree.”
The Taliban have also said female presenters could wear a medical mask instead. Regardless, Niazi said she felt trapped by the order to cover her face.
“When such decrees are issued and women are imposed, women will be eliminated across Afghanistan, as we now see women being eliminated one by one,” she said.
In an act of solidarity with female colleagues, the station’s male employees covered their faces with masks, including the main reader of the evening news.
A local media official confirmed his broadcaster received the Taliban’s order last week, but was forced to implement it on Sunday after being told it was not up for discussion.
He spoke on condition that he and his station remain anonymous for fear of retaliation from Taliban authorities.
“No basis in Islam”
During the last Taliban rule in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, they imposed overwhelming restrictions on women, requiring them to wear the universal burqa and excluding them from public life and education.
After seizing power again in August, the Taliban initially appeared to have eased their restrictions somewhat and did not promulgate a dress code for women.
But in recent weeks they have enacted a sharp, hard line change that confirms the worst fears of rights activists and further complicates the Taliban’s dealings with an already suspicious international community.
Earlier this month, the Taliban ordered all women in public to wear head-to-toe clothing that only reveals their eyes. The decree said women should only leave the home when necessary and that male relatives for violating women’s dress codes would be punished, ranging from a subpoena to court hearings and imprisonment.
The Taliban leadership has also banned girls from attending school after sixth grade, reversing previous promises by Taliban officials that girls of all ages would receive an education.
Fawzia Koofi, former deputy speaker of the Afghan parliament, told Al Jazeera that the latest order had “no justification”.
“Some individuals within the Taliban have simply sought to impose their own self-interpreted principles under the name of religion. It has no basis in Islam,” Koofi said.
Koofi said that since taking power, the Taliban have issued many decrees that eliminate women’s freedoms and liberties.
“I think it’s the Taliban [focusing on women’s outfits] shifting public focus from the main problems the country is suffering, including the economic crisis, which the Taliban could not even issue a decree to combat, to growing corruption and war,” Koofi said.