The Taliban with a long list of restrictions have banned women from visiting one of Afghanistan’s most popular national parks, reported The Guardian.
Band-e-Amir, one of the national parks that thousands of people visit each year, is located in a stunning landscape of sapphire-blue lakes and towering cliffs in the country’s central Bamiyan province.
The ban was announced after acting minister of vice and virtue Mohammad Khalid Hanafi complained that the women visiting the park had not been adhering to the proper way of wearing the hijab.
“Going sightseeing is not a must for women,” said Mohammad Khalid Hanafi as he asked security forces to begin stopping women from entering the park.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) described the ban as the latest restriction imposed on Afghan women. Taliban, after returning to power have closed most girls’ secondary schools barred women from higher education and stopped females from working or doing jobs.
The latest restriction shrinks women’s access to public places, including bathhouses, gyms, and parks.
“I’ve heard more than one Afghan woman talk about how next the Taliban won’t allow them to breathe,” said Heather Barr of HRW. “That sounds very hyperbolic until you see them doing things like actually trying to stop women from being outdoors and enjoying nature.”
In 2013, the park became an important symbol of change after it was announced that four female park rangers had been hired in a first for the country. Two years after the Taliban’s returned to power it has become the latest policy in their systematic effort to push women out of the public sphere.
Barr said: “Step by step the walls are closing in on women as every home becomes a prison.”
Richard Bennett, the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan said: “Can someone please explain why this restriction on women visiting Band-e-Amir is necessary to comply with sharia and Afghan culture?”
Taliban have been saying for a long period of time that they respect women’s rights in accordance with the group’s interpretation of Islamic and Afghan customs.
Barr said it was hard to conceive of any rational reason that this ban had been put in place. “What explanation can you think of, other than cruelty?” she asked.
“It’s a magical place to go because you see families laughing and picnicking and enjoying themselves,” Barr said. “And that’s what the Taliban have just taken away – the ability of families to enjoy a day out together, with the women in the family being part of that.”
