Afghanistan Peace Campaign
The new law, issued on 21 August 2024, lays out the duties and powers of those enforcing it, the employees of the Ministry for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice, which the Emirate re-established when it retook power in August 2021. The enforcers (muhtasibin), the law says, should respect everyone’s social standing and human dignity, not pry into people’s private sins and avoid entering their homes. It gives them extensive powers to punish wrongdoers with penalties ranging from verbal admonishment to fines to prison.
The law details many acts which are forbidden or obligatory. Acts that enforcers should prevent include adultery, fornication, lesbianism, anal sex, gambling, animal and bird fighting, making pictures of animate objects, beard-shaving, befriending non-Muslims, observing Nawruz and Shab-e Yalda (festivals on the spring equinox and winter solstice) and dealing harshly with orphans. Enforcers, the law says, should refer those not praying, not fasting during Ramadan, or disobeying their parents to a court of law. Special injunctions apply to shopkeepers, farmers, artisans, taxi drivers and those responsible for beauty spots and tourist attractions.
The law orders women to cover their bodies and faces entirely and not speak or sing loud enough for non-family members to hear them. Men must dress so as to cover their bodies from navel to knee.
(See also a statement on the new law from the Ministry of Justice.)
We are publishing a basic translation of the law in response to demand from our readers, but are looking forward to publishing a complete translation, including the extensive footnotes, along with a separate section on praying, as well as a review.
You can preview the report online and download it by clicking here or the download button below.
*John Butt came to journalism and broadcasting from a traditional madrasa education; he was a graduate of the Darul Uloom Deoband seminary in northern India. For the last thirty years, he has been responsible for setting up radio serial dramas – storytelling in a contemporary setting – including in Afghanistan – ‘New Home, New Life’ in the 1990s and, more recently, a cross-border radio drama called ‘Da Pulay Poray’.
His previous report for AAN, ‘A Taleban Theory of State: A review of the Chief Justice’s book of jurisprudence, reviewed a book by the Islamic Emirate’s Chief Justice, Abdul Hakim Haqqani. ‘Al-Emarat al-Islamiya wa Nidhamuha’ (The Islamic Emirate and its System of Governance) is the fullest and most authoritative account yet of what the Taleban believe an Islamic state should be like.