WASHINGTON, UNITED STATES – Hillary Clinton, the former US Secretary of State, has condemned the Taliban’s new morality law, which imposes extensive restrictions on the Afghan population, particularly women, urging the international community to speak out against it.
In a post on X on Wednesday, August 28, Ms. Clinton asked the international community, “Do you want to see where crackpot fundamentalism leads?”
“Look no further than the Taliban’s new law prohibiting women from speaking outside of their homes,” she added.
“The world needs to speak out against this latest abomination,” she emphasized.
The Taliban published a series of new “vice and virtue” laws last week, approved by their supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, requiring women to fully veil their bodies, including their faces, in thick clothing at all times in public.
Under the new law, women’s voices are also considered potential instruments of vice and will not be allowed to be heard in public. Women are also prohibited from singing or reading aloud, even from within their homes.
“Whenever an adult woman leaves her home out of necessity, she is obliged to conceal her voice, face, and body,” the new laws state.
Women are now prohibited from looking directly at men who are not related to them by blood or marriage, and taxi drivers will face punishment if they agree to transport a woman without a male guardian.
Women or girls who fail to comply may be detained and punished as deemed appropriate by the Taliban’s morality police, who are responsible for enforcing the new laws.
The Taliban’s new law has faced significant criticism from the UN, various countries, rights groups, and activists, who see it as another attempt by the Taliban to oppress the population, particularly women and girls.
In the latest reaction, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk called for the immediate repeal of the “repressive law,” saying that it constitutes a clear violation of Afghanistan’s obligations under international human rights law.
“Disempowering and rendering invisible and voiceless half the population of Afghanistan will only worsen the human rights and humanitarian crisis in the country,” Türk said in a statement.
“Rather, this is a time to bring together all the people of Afghanistan, irrespective of their gender, religion or ethnicity, to help resolve the many challenges the country faces,” he added.
Over the past three years since returning to power, the Taliban have enforced what rights groups describe as “gender apartheid,” effectively excluding women and girls from nearly all aspects of public life.
Before the new restrictions, women and girls were already barred from pursuing education beyond the sixth grade, prohibited from most forms of employment, and restricted from visiting parks, gyms, and beauty salons, as well as traveling long distances without a male guardian.
