KABUL: In the last year, the Taliban’s morality ministry has imprisoned more than 13,000 people in Afghanistan for “immoral acts” and dismissed over 280 security force personnel for not growing a beard, according to officials on Tuesday.
In its yearly operations update, the Ministry for the Prevention of Vice and Propagation of Virtue said that about half of those imprisoned had been released after a 24-hour period. The nature of the alleged offenses and the detainees’ gender were not broken down.
At a press briefing, Mohibullah Mokhlis, the ministry’s director of planning and legislation, revealed that authorities had destroyed 21,328 musical instruments in the previous year and stopped hundreds of computer operators from distributing “immoral and unethical” films in theaters.
According to his statement, it had identified 281 security force members who did not have facial hair and had fired them in accordance with its interpretation of Islamic law.
The UN and human rights organizations have criticized the morality ministry for restricting women’s freedom of speech and taking over the facilities of the defunct women’s ministry in Kabul after the Taliban took power in 2021.
Reports from the United Nations mission in Afghanistan indicate that morality ministry officers have stopped and detained women for not dressing according to their standards, sometimes for several hours.
The Taliban claims that the regulations follow its interpretation of both Afghan culture and Islamic law, branding the accusations of detentions as “baseless.”
