The Taliban have banned women from hearing other women’s voices in their latest attempt to impose a harsh version of Islamic law on Afghanistan.

In a rambling voice message Monday, the minister for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice announced a bizarre new restriction on behavior of women.

Although the precise details of the Taliban’s decision are unclear, Afghan human rights activists warned that this could mean women would effectively be banned from conversing with each other.

In his message, Minister Khalid Hanafi said: “Even when an adult woman is praying and another woman is passing by, she should not pray loud enough for them to hear her. »

“How could they be allowed to sing if they are not even allowed to hear each other’s voices during prayer, let alone for anything else.”

He said these are “new rules that will be gradually implemented, and God will help us with every step we take.”

Like the Taliban did forbidden living beings After being broadcast on television, his message was delivered via a voice recording instead of a television broadcast.

“How are women who are the sole breadwinners of their families supposed to buy bread, seek medical care, or simply exist if even their voices are prohibited” said one activist in response.

“Everything he says is a form of mental torture for us,” said one Afghan woman. Kabul told the Telegraph.

“Living in Afghanistan is incredibly painful for us women. Afghanistan is forgottenand that is why they repress us – they torture us daily.

“They say we can’t hear other women’s voices, and I don’t understand where these opinions come from,” she added.

Since taking power in August 2021, the Taliban have systematically restricted women’s rights in Afghanistan.

The women have already been ordered to cover your face “to avoid temptation and tempt others” and refrain from speaking in the presence of unknown men who are neither husbands nor close relatives.

“If it is necessary for women to leave their homes, they must hide their faces and voices from men” and be accompanied by a “male guardian», according to the rules approved by the supreme leader of the Taliban.

Afghan women were also ordered not to speak loudly inside their house, to prevent their voices are not heard out.

Women who defy the new rules will be arrested and sent to prison, the Taliban said.

In July 2024, a UN report indicated that the ministry responsible for the promotion of virtue and the prevention of vice was contributing to a climate of fear and intimidation among Afghans through its decrees and the methods used to enforce.

The Taliban supreme leader also pledged to start stone women to death in public.

“They (the Taliban) are waging a total war against us, and we have no one in the world to hear our voices,” a former official told the Telegraph from Kabul.

“The world has abandoned us,” she added. “They abandoned us to the Taliban, and everything that is happening to us now is the result of Policies of Western governments.”

“Many women commit suicide”

“I feel depressed. The world is progressing in technology and having the time of its life, but here we can’t even hear each other’s voices,” she said.

“They want us not to exist at all, and there is nothing we can do about it,” said another woman from the western province of Herat.

“They might succeed at some point, because many commit suicide because of the pressure,” she added.

“They think that governing Afghanistan is just a matter of remove women – we did not commit a crime by being born women,” she said.

The increased restrictions imposed by the Taliban supreme leader have sowed discord within the Taliban ranks.

A senior Taliban official told the Telegraph of moderates’ frustration with the regime’s harsher elements.

“Someone should arrest the supreme leader. Many Taliban are angry and fear that with everything the leadership does, we could lose Afghanistan as quickly as we took it,” he added.

“They fear that as soon as an alternative to the Taliban appears, the people will revolt and the West will bomb us again,” the official explained.

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