The Taliban have banned Afghan women from allowing their voices to be heard by other women, adding yet another restriction to their string of radical measures against women. Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, the Taliban’s minister of vice and virtue, said in an audio statement last week that women should refrain from reciting the Quran — the holy book of Islam — aloud in the presence of other women, according to Amu TV , a U.S.
-based network established by Afghan journalists in exile after the fall of Afghanistan’s Western-backed government. “If a woman is not permitted to perform Takbir , then how could she be allowed to sing?,” the minister was quoted as saying, referring to an Islamic expression mainly used by Muslims around the world, which means “God is greater.” A woman’s voice is considered awrah, meaning that which must be covered, and shouldn’t be heard in public, even by other women, Hanafi said, The Daily Telegraph in London reported.
Hanafi, who is reportedly close to the Taliban’s supreme leader, is blacklisted by the UN and sanctioned by the European Union. Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in August 2021, they have imposed a series of restrictions on Afghan women, mirroring the severe rules from their first regime in the 1990s, which banned television and music. Afghan girls have been barred from attending middle and high schools and universities, as well as working in governmental and international non-governmental organizations or NGOs.