'Do Not Touch My Clothes': Afghans call out Taliban dress codes by posing in traditional attire

Afghans in Canada and around the world are posing in colourful traditional dresses online to hit back against the Taliban's new clothing requirements for women in schools.

Based on their interpretation of sharia law, the Taliban has recently ordered all classrooms to be segregated based on gender, and mandated that all female students and teachers wear hijabs. On Saturday, photos on social media even showed a group of female students covered entirely in long black robes and waving Taliban flags in the government-run university in Kabul.

But many with Afghan heritage in Canada say their own traditional clothing looks nothing like that.

“That’s not who we are,” Neelo Mansuri, an Afghan-Canadian activist and law student in Toronto, said in a phone interview with CTVNews.ca.

“The people in the Taliban regime have taken religion and exported it into something that is completely despicable,” she said. “Afghanistan is a country of colour. Not this long, black, grim Dementor-like clothing, if I can make a Harry Potter reference.”