Women’s journalists had chosen, on Saturday, not to comply with this order. The director of Tolonews explained, Sunday, that the chain had been “forced” to enforce the order according to which women had to cover themselves entirely in public.
Le Monde with AFP
They finally subjected themselves to the Taliban order to conceal their appearance. The presenters of the big Afghan television channels appeared on Sunday May 22, on the antenna with the covered face, complying with an order of the Taliban one day after having challenged it.
Since their return to power last year, the Taliban has imposed a series of restrictions on civil society, a large part of which aims to submit women to their austere conception of Islam. At the beginning of the month, the supreme chief of the Taliban issued an order according to which women had to cover themselves entirely in public, including the face, ideally with the burqa, a full veil with a fabric grid at the eye level. Previously, only a scarf covering the hair was enough.
The feared Afghan Ministry of the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice had ordered television presenters to comply by Saturday. Women’s journalists had first chosen not to comply with this order, passing on the antenna live without concealing their faces. 2>
Pressures of the Taliban
Before turning. On Sunday, the presenters wore the full veil, leaving only to see their eyes and their forehead, to present the newspapers on the Tolonews, Ariana Television, Shamshad TV and 1TV channels. Sonia Niazi, a Tolonews presenter, explained:
We resisted and were against the port [of the full veil]. But Tolonews underwent pressure, [the Taliban] said that any presenter who appeared on the screen without covering his face should be entrusted with another work.
The director of Tolonews, Khpalwak Sapai, explained that the chain had been “forced” to enforce the order to its staff:
We were told: you are forced to do so. You have to do it. There is no other solution. I was called on the phone yesterday and I was told in strict terms to do so. So, it is not by choice that we do, but forced and forced.
Mohammad Sadeq Akif Mohajir, spokesperson for the ministry for the virtue and prevention of vice, said that the authorities did not intend to force the presenters to leave their jobs. “We are happy that the channels have properly exercised their responsibility,” he commented to the France-Presse agency.
full veil in public
The Taliban have ordered that women working within the government are dismissed if they do not respect the new dress code. Male employees are also likely to be suspended if their wives or daughters do not comply with it.
The Taliban resumed power in August 2021 by announcing a more flexible diet than during their first rigorist reign. But in recent months they have started to repress oppositions and erode freedoms in recent months, especially for women in education, work and daily life.
They started by demanding that women wear at least a hidjab, a scarf covering their heads but revealing the face. Then, in early May, they imposed on them the public port of a full veil, preferably burqa, already compulsory when they were in power from 1996 to 2001.
During the twenty years which followed the eviction of the Taliban in 2001, many women from the conservative campaigns had continued to wear burqa. But most Afghanes, including television presenters, had opted for the scarf. The television channels have already ceased series and soap operas featuring women, on the orders of the Taliban.