Taliban bans Afghan women from ‘hearing each other’ in latest oppressive law

Afghan human rights activists have warned the new law means women are effectively banned from holding conversations with one another.

The Taliban has enacted yet another law further oppressing the freedoms of women and girls, this time issuing a decree that prohibits them from praying aloud or reciting the Qur’an in each other’s presence.

The move comes after a series of so-called “virtue” or “morality” laws were implemented in Afghanistan in August, laid out in a 114-page document that covered vast aspects of everyday public life.

Among the new laws announced in August were directives making it mandatory for women to veil their entire bodies, including their faces, at all times in public. Women were also forbidden from singing, reciting and reading aloud in public, as a woman’s voice is deemed “intimate” and should not be heard.

Women are already excluded from education after sixth grade, many public spaces and most jobs. They are also prohibited from looking at men they are not related to by blood or marriage.

During an event in eastern Logar province on Sunday, the Taliban’s Vice and Virtue Minister Khalid Hanafi said: “It is prohibited for a grown woman to recite Quranic verses or perform recitations in front of another grown woman. Even chants of takbir (Allahu Akbar) are not permitted.”

He said that uttering similar expressions like “subhanallah,” another word central to the Islamic faith, was also not allowed. A woman was not permitted to perform the call to prayer, he told the gathering.

“Even when an adult female prays and another female passes by, she must not pray loudly enough for them to hear.”

“How could they be allowed to sing if they aren’t even permitted to hear (each other’s) voices while praying, let alone for anything else.”