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ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN —The United Nations rights chief expressed his "abhorrence" Monday at the recent promulgation of "so-called morality laws" in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan that silence women or order them to cover their faces and bodies in public.
Volker Türk told a U.N. Human Rights Council session in Geneva that the new laws were implemented alongside bans on Afghan girls attending secondary school, prohibiting female students from accessing university education, and severely curtailing women's access to public life and employment opportunities.
"I shudder to think what is next for the women and girls of Afghanistan. This repressive control over half the population in the country is unparalleled in today's world," the U.N. Human Rights Commissioner stated.
Türk denounced the morality laws as outrageous and amounting "to systematic gender persecution." He warned that the intensifying curbs on women are "propelling Afghanistan further down a path of isolation, pain, and hardship." It would also jeopardize the country's future by "massively stifling its development," he added.
Richard Bennett, the U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of Afghan human rights, also spoke and informed Monday's session in Geneva that the Taliban had lately barred him from visiting the country to conduct assessments in line with his mandate.
He added that the morality law "marks a new phase in the ongoing repression of respect for human rights" since the Taliban regained control of the country three years ago.
The 114-page, 35-article law enacted by the Taliban last month outlines various actions and specific conduct that the Taliban consider mandatory or prohibited for Afghan men and women in line with their strict interpretation of the Islamic law of Sharia.
The restrictions prohibit Afghan women from traveling without a male guardian, require them to be silent in public, enforce mandatory covering of females from head to toe, including their faces, and forbid eye contact between women and unrelated men.
The law empowers the Taliban's contentious Ministry for Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice to enforce it strictly.
Ministry enforcers are ordered to discipline offenders, and penalties may include anything from a verbal warning to fines to imprisonment for offenses such as adultery, extramarital sex, lesbianism, taking pictures of living objects, and befriending non-Muslims.
Taliban leaders did not comment on Monday's U.N. assertions, but they have rejected previous international criticism of the morality laws.
Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesperson, recently stated that "non-Muslims should educate themselves about Islamic laws and respect Islamic values" before rejecting or raising objections to them. "We find it blasphemous to our Islamic Sharia when objections are raised without understanding it," he said.
No country has officially recognized the Taliban as the legitimate ruler of Afghanistan, citing human rights concerns, particularly the harsh treatment of women.
"Any normalization of engagement with the de facto authorities must be based on demonstrated, measurable, and independently verifiable improvements in human rights," Bennett stressed in his speech Monday, urging the Islamist Taliban to reverse current policies.