On New Year's Day, 2022, the twitter account for the General Directorate of Intelligence (GDI), an intelligence agency controlled by the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, posted a video of a raid where law enforcement agents arrested three people and seized 3,000 liters of an alcoholic substance just to be dumped into a canal in Kabul.
If you think life couldn't be any more difficult in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, think again. On December 26, 2021, the Taliban government announced that women can no longer travel farther than 45 miles (72km) without the companionship of a male relative.
On Sunday, November 21, the Taliban issued a guideline to broadcasters prohibiting women from appearing in television soap operas and entertainment shows. It also requires female journalists and news presenters to wear headscarves. The latest guideline from the oppressive Islamic regime adds to the rapidly deteriorating women’s rights condition in Afghanistan.
In September, Zebulon Simentov, a man who claimed to be the last Jew in Afghanistan, left the country. He claimed that he was the remainder of a centuries-old community and charged reporters who wished to interview him. The Associated Press (AP) reported that Simentov might not be the last Jew in Afghanistan.
The Taliban ordered all barbers in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, to stop cutting hairs and trimming or shaving off beards. The new mandate was announced Monday, September 27, by the Ministries of Prayer and Guidance and the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (Ministry of Vice and Virtue) in the provincial capital of Lashkar Gah.
Mullah Nooruddin Turabi, one of the founders of the Taliban, announced that harsh punishments, including executions, will be implemented again. During an interview with the Associated Press (AP) on September 22, Turabi announced that the Taliban would once again carry out executions and amputations of hands. Not in public, of course, because they’ve “changed” as they like to say.
For weeks the employees of Afghanistan’s Ministry of Women Affairs were trying to get back to work but were turned away by the Taliban. They were asked to return to their homes.
On August 17, 2021, in his first-ever public appearance, the Taliban’s longtime spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid announced that the Taliban would be more moderate. Mujahid also vowed that the Taliban would forego any revenge against those who resisted their return, and promised that the regime would respect women’s rights.
