Index on Censorship weekly round-up
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Friday, 23 August 2024
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Silent women in burkas will now be the rule rather than the exception in Afghanistan.
Photo: Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion
The silencing of Afghanistan’s women is now complete.
This week, Afghanistan’s Law on the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice came into force.
Women’s voices are now considered as awrah, or intimate parts, and may only be experienced in cases of necessity. Women must refrain from raising their voices and they are forbidden from being overheard reading aloud, chanting or singing outside their homes.
The law also dictates that women’s bodies and faces must be fully covered.
“It is haram for unrelated men to look at the bodies or faces of unrelated women, and it is haram for unrelated women to look at unrelated men,” the law says.
It is the Taliban’s ultimate denial of women’s freedom of expression and is an all too predictable outcome of the withdrawal of Western troops from the country in 2021.
The law, ratified by Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, applies to all individuals living in Afghanistan including foreign residents.
Punishment for these “crimes” will be carried out by the Taliban’s Muhtaseebs or morality police who have the authority to detain individuals for up to three days on the flimsiest of evidence.
These “vice and virtue” laws also severely restrict religious practices, outline what individuals can and cannot do in their sex lives and allow the Taliban to regulate both state and private media outlets. Publishing images of living beings is now also forbidden and people are now forbidden from storing photos or videos of others on their phones.
The human rights community has been quick to denounce the new laws.
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Ravina Shamdasani said the new policies were contrary to international human rights law and “completely erase women’s presence in public – silencing their voices, and depriving them of their individual autonomy, effectively attempting to render them into faceless, voiceless shadows”.
“Disempowering and rendering invisible and voiceless half the population of Afghanistan will only worsen the human rights and humanitarian crisis in the country. Rather, this is a time to bring together all the people of Afghanistan, irrespective of their gender, religion or ethnicity, to help resolve the many challenges the country faces.”
These new laws go against everything we stand for at Index on Censorship and show a complete failure of the West’s foreign policies. And it's the women of Afghanistan who have paid the highest price.
Mark Stimpson
Associate editor
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** Modi’s plans to muzzle India’s internet
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YouTuber Dhruv Rathee is the person Indians increasingly turn to when they want news
For a decade now, India’s mainstream media has stopped doing the job it’s meant to do – holding the powerful to account, writes Shoaib Dainyal ([link removed]) . Using a mixture of carrot and stick, Modi has ensured his government has little to fear from traditional broadcasters or newspapers. The result: Indians are now increasingly turning to the internet for news and opinion. This trend is so significant that Modi is making increasingly desperate attempts to control what takes place online.
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**
Celebrating Iranian resistance
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** An evening of film, discussion and solidarity
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** Tuesday 17 September, 5.30pm | Colours Hoxton
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On 16 September 2022 the world was shocked by the death in custody of Mahsa Amini. Her murder was a reminder of the brutal side of Iran, as was the crushing of dissent that followed. Despite the crackdown people did and still do resist, taking great personal risks in their quest to improve the rights landscape of Iran. Index on Censorship celebrates these dissidents and so, as we remember Amini, we want to spotlight them too.
The event features a screening of Iranian filmmaker Jafar Panahi's Cannes-award winning 3 Faces (2018), made while under a 20 year filmmaking ban, plus a panel discussion and standing in solidarity with Toomaj Salehi.
More information and to register for free: click here ([link removed])
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** From the Index archives
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** Why the Taliban wanted my brave mother dead...
Hamed Ariri
January 2022
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Women's rights in Afghanistan are again in the news this week (see above) after the Taliban's introduction of new "vice and virtue" laws, turning back the clock in the country. When Afghan playwright Hamed Ariri was 10 years old he watched his mother Fariba give a speech in his hometown of Herat, Afghanistan, speaking out for women’s rights and education and against the ruling Taliban. A day later, a mullah gave the order for Fariba’s execution. Read the story from our archive here ([link removed]) .
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Index on Censorship defends people's freedom to express themselves without fear of harm or persecution. We publish censored writers and artists, monitor and campaign against censorship, and encourage debate.
We rely on donations from readers and supporters. By donating ([link removed]) to Index you help us to protect freedom of expression and to support those who are denied that right.
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