The Taliban has issued a decree banning Afghan women from hearing each other’s voices.
The Taliban’s minister for the “propagation of virtue and prevention of vice” (I.e. the Taliban’s “morality police”) said,
“When women are not permitted to call takbir or athan [Islamic call… pic.twitter.com/oBY134LGje
— Elica Le Bon الیکا ل بن (@elicalebon) October 30, 2024
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The Taliban’s minister for the “propagation of virtue and prevention of vice” (I.e. the Taliban’s “morality police”) said,
“When women are not permitted to call takbir or athan [Islamic call to prayer], they certainly cannot sing songs or music . . . . Even when an adult female prays and another female passes by, she must not pray loudly enough for them to hear . . . . they aren’t even permitted to hear [each other’s] voices while praying, let alone for anything else.”
This new law marks another intensification of the Taliban’s draconian suppression of women into nobodyhood.
The reason they keep women from hearing each other, communicating, experiencing sound, music, laughter and joy is to keep them subdued, isolated, without personhood, and increasingly amenable to total erasure.
How much longer can we ignore these regimes treating women as less than cattle – which despite having no basic rights, still enjoy the right to see, to feel, to make noise, and to be heard? Are our women really less than this?
Afghan women are responding to the Taliban’s restrictions by dancing in traditional attire, a powerful expression of their identity and defiance against oppression.
— Habib Khan (@HabibKhanT) October 29, 2024
Mick Hartley 
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